When I think of the Philadelphia Eagles, I think about next level QB play going back to the 80’s with my main man, Randall Cunningham. Randall was a monster who would elude a pass rush, get out of the pocket, and then throw a bomb for 60 yards and hit his WR in stride. Then we had Donovan McNabb in the 00’s who could take a hit and at the same time run you over or fake the run and hit an open man downfield. Michael Vick’s redemption story with the Eagles went down in the 10’s and if you owned him in fantasy in 2010 you won a lot of money. Vick would run the ball and just blaze right pass you or he could throw an absolute laser into his receivers hands if he had to. Now, in the 4th decade of QB dominance out of Philly, we got Jalen Hurts who has just been putting numbers on the boards this year. It’s just cool to see the Philadelphia Eagles have 4 straight decades with QB’s who changed the game in different ways.
I started getting into football in the late 80’s and it was Randall’s game that made me a fan of the sport. Really it was Randall and John Elway but Randall was somebody that just played cool. He was 6’4” which I feel was tall at the time but he wasn’t your run of the mill pocket passer. Randall was the most athletic guy on the field at all times and nobody could touch him. He was a cheat code against any defense trying to maintain him. Dude was out here throwing straight up bombs that had me and my friends trying to be him at the park during games of tackle football. He was Bo Jackson on Tecmo Bowl before Bo Jackson on Tecmo Bowl.
And don’t get it twisted either. If he had a 3rd and long that he wasn’t feeling he might was just quick kick one 50 yards to let you know that he was controlling the game. Yup, check Randall out on Wikipedia. He’s listed as a Quarterback/Punter and that is just the most gangster shit of all time. You ever seen this one though? A 91 yard punt????? Yeah… Dude was real.
Randall’s knee injury was a major setback in his career but it was dope to see his resurgence with the Vikings years later with Randy Moss. When talking Philly QB’s we can’t overlook Rodney Peete who was nice in his own right for a hot sec in the 90’s. But if we’re talking the next legendary QB on the Eagles we have to go to the year 1999 when Donovan McNabb came into the league and eventually started dominating in the year 2000. Donovan was actually a phenomenal basketball player at Syracuse and he was one of the first QB’s I remember to bring a hoops style court awareness to the gridiron. Just check out the eyes behind his head and the vision to never lose sight of hucking the rock downfield. Beautiful. For a large part of his Eagles career, McNabb had basically zero receivers to throw too. But he still made magic each week.
I feel that McNabb was one of the most marketable stars in the NFL at that time too. Campbell’s Chunky Soup hit it out of the park with their campaigns with Donovan’s mom. McNabb was just so likable and was an absolute beast out on the field.
After McNabb did his thing in the 00’s, we had Michael Vick coming off of his suspension from the league and putting together what might have been the best QB play seasons I’ve ever seen. Keep in mind that this was before Patrick Mahomes came into the league and rewrote the QB narrative but Vick, like Randall and like McNabb, came to change the game with the Philadelphia Eagles. Just watch the highlights to the Week 10 game against the Redskins on Monday Night Football to see what Vick was about in 2010. 6 TD’s in that game that just left your jaw on the floor. And to think that this was the same day that McNabb signed an extension with the Redskins? Wow.
Really wish the NFL would let me embed some Vick highlights below but they’re not letting that happen. Here’s more on Vick’s incarceration and his journey back to the league with the Eagles. Michael Vick will forever be one of my favorite football players of all time and his time in the early 10’s with the Eagles was a thing of beauty.
As we inch closer to today, let’s not skip over Nick Foles aka Big D*ck Nick because I can’t write an Eagles article and not call attention to this.
Outside of winning a championship in 2018, the Carson Wentz era faded out and the Eagles picked up Jalen Hurts out of Oklahoma with the 53rd pick of the 2020 draft. If that 53rd pick tells you anything, it tells you that Jalen Hurts was being slept on. The Eagles were up on their game though and during the 2021 season, you started to see some glimpses of what Jalen would become today. I had him as my QB in one of my fantasy leagues and he was consistently good. Then in the offseason, the Eagles picked up AJ Brown and I instantly went to eBay and bought a few nice Jalen Hurts rookie cards. Glad I did too because those were a great flip for me about a month ago.
As we all prepare for the Super Bowl later this afternoon, all eyes will be on Jalen to see if he can take down the God, Patrick Mahomes. It’s honestly almost impossible to bet against Mahomes but I’ll be right here for it if Jalen and the Eagles can take Andy Reid and the Chiefs down. Jalen is taking the baton from long lineage of amazing QB’s for the Philadelphia Eagles. He’s just hitting his stride and the Eagles should be a powerhouse in the NFC for years to come.