Few franchises wear their past as openly as Philadelphia. Nine decades of near misses and two Super Bowl parades have shaped a fanbase that treats every Sunday as a referendum. Anyone studying the Philadelphia Eagles @ Jacksonville Jaguars odds is looking at a club whose modern strength took a very long time to arrive. The story starts in a country still climbing out of the Great Depression.
A New Deal team
The Eagles were founded in 1933, when Bert Bell and Lud Wray paid a $2,500 entry fee, were handed the liquidated assets of the defunct Frankford Yellow Jackets and put a new NFL franchise in Philadelphia. Bell named the team after the Blue Eagle, the symbol of Franklin Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration. Manpower shortages during the Second World War forced a one-season merger with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1943, producing the side supporters still know as the Steagles.
Van Buren, Bednarik and the early titles
Success came under Earle "Greasy" Neale. Steve Van Buren's five-yard run in a Shibe Park blizzard settled the 1948 title game 7-0 against the Chicago Cardinals, and a 14-0 win over the Los Angeles Rams a year later made it back-to-back championships, both by shutout.
A third arrived in 1960. Norm Van Brocklin and Tommy McDonald ran the offence, while Chuck Bednarik played 58 minutes and dragged down Jim Taylor as the clock expired to seal a 17-13 win over Green Bay. It remains the only play-off defeat of Vince Lombardi's career.
The long wait
What followed was a drought measured in decades. Dick Vermeil took the Eagles to Super Bowl XV in January 1981, where Oakland won 27-10. Buddy Ryan's built the late 1980s sides around Reggie White and handed the offence to Randall Cunningham, delivering a fair amount of theatre but not a single play-off win.
Close calls and the Philly Special
Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb defined the next era. Philadelphia lost three consecutive NFC Championship Games from the 2001 season onwards. The third of those defeats came a week after the fourth-and-26 conversion against Green Bay in January 2004, a play still replayed across the city. The reward was a 24-21 defeat to New England in Super Bowl XXXIX, with Terrell Owens catching nine passes seven weeks after breaking his leg and tearing ankle ligaments. Anyone reading NFL betting odds in those years found a permanent contender that could not land the final punch.
That ended in February 2018. With Carson Wentz injured, backup Nick Foles beat New England 41-33 in Super Bowl LII, throwing three touchdowns and catching another on the fourth-down call from Doug Pederson now known as the Philly Special. Foles took the MVP award, and Philadelphia finally had a Lombardi Trophy.
Two more finals, one more parade
Jalen Hurts carried the team back to the biggest stage after the 2022 season, losing 38-35 to Kansas City in Super Bowl LVII despite three rushing touchdowns, a Super Bowl record for a quarterback, and a fourth through the air. The rematch two years later went differently. Nick Sirianni's side dismantled the Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl LIX in February 2025, sacking Patrick Mahomes six times and leading 34-0 before Kansas City scored. Hurts was named MVP, in a season where Saquon Barkley ran for 2,005 yards.
The record against Jacksonville
The two clubs have met eight times since the Jaguars entered the league in 1995, and the Eagles lead the series 5-3. Jacksonville took the first three meetings, winning 38-21 in 1997, 28-25 in 2002 and 13-6 in 2006, the last of those in Philadelphia.
Everything since has gone the other way. The Eagles won 28-3 in Jacksonville in 2010, 34-17 at home in 2014, 24-18 at Wembley in 2018, 29-21 in 2022 and 28-23 in November 2024. That is a run of five straight, and the two sides have never met in the play-offs.
From a $2,500 purchase in the Depression to two Super Bowl titles in eight seasons, the Eagles have taken the scenic route to the top of the sport. The length of the wait is exactly why the celebrations were so loud.
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