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The Philadelphia Eagles have been dominant on the ground this season. On Sunday, the team broke an NFL record that’s stood for nearly a century.
Philly scored its 39th rushing touchdown of the year in the NFC Championship game against the 49ers.
The second half score broke a mark that was set back in 1924 by the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Oddly enough, the Yellow Jackets were a predecessor of sorts to the Eagles in the NFL. Frankford is located in the northeastern part of Philadelphia.
From Wikipedia:
The NFL spent over a year searching for a new team to operate in Philadelphia. On July 9, 1933, the NFL granted an expansion franchise to Bert Bell and Lud Wray and awarded them the assets of the failed Yellow Jackets organization, with Bell and Wray naming their team the Eagles after the symbol of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
This has led to assumptions that the Yellow Jackets changed their name to the Eagles, relocated to Philadelphia and returned to the league after going into recess in 1932: however, that is not the case. Bell and Wray did not buy the Yellow Jackets team, but rather the NFL rights to the Philadelphia area that had formerly belonged to the Frankford Athletic Association.
That Frankford team went 11-2-1 in NFL play, while posting a 17-3-1 overall record.
This Philadelphia team posted a league best record, going 14-3 on the year. They now find themselves up 28-7 in the NFC Championship game, just a quarter away from a Super Bowl appearance.
The record came tumbling down with a Jalen Hurts TD on a QB sneak in the third quarter. That was the team’s fourth rushing score on the day, a surprise coming against one of the NFL’s top rush defenses.
They’ll now await the winner of the Bengals and Chiefs as they pursue their first championship since 2017.