For the Eagles and Packers, It’s Another Historic Moment.
Apologies, Cleveland. These are the best-laid plans, you know. Really, it’s not you—it’s us.
Good news—rumor was going around about a fun-filled weekend for the whole team in Sao Paulo, Brazil. On Friday evening, you’d play the Eagles.
Bad news—the Packers will actually face the Eagles in Corinthians Arena in Sao Paulo. Sorry.
For the Eagles/Packers rivalry, it’s just another chapter.
On opening day in 1991 — complete with perhaps the most ferocious Eagles defense ever — Bryce Paup injured Randall Cunningham’s knee and sent him out for the season.
Or at Lincoln Financial Field in 2003, when a 4th and 26 conversions to Freddie Mitchell helped to launch a game into overtime that the Eagles would win.
Perhaps the most memorable was a late December Day in 1960 when the Eagles gave everything that they had through three and a half quarters to gain a 17–13 lead on Green Bay.
With time running out, the Packers marched down the field. On the last play of the game, Bart Starr found Jim Taylor on a pass in the center of the field, who headed for the end zone. Like a tidal wave, he crashed into Concrete Chuck Bednarik at the five.
Taylor drove his feet and lowered his shoulder, but it was no use. Bednarik slammed him into the hard, frozen Franklin Field grass and sat on him. The referees tried to get the ball out from the bottom of the pile, all the while Taylor shouting at Bednarik, “Get the f-off of me.”
As the clock expired and the Eagles’ defense jumped up and down on the field to celebrate Philadelphia’s first World Championship since 1949, Bednarik stood over Taylor, grinning from ear to ear, and said, “You can get up now.”
The game would be the only playoff contest that Vince Lombardi would ever lose.
The 1960 NFL Championship Game would lead (in part) to a new NFL rule – the delay of the game penalty.
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