Steve Cook continues his look at the NFL’s best quarterbacks with a favorite team of many, the Philadelphia Eagles!

If you’ve been around long enough, you know that the 411mania.com message board was a breeding ground for some of the top online wrestling writing talent of my generation. Larry Csonka, Mathew Sforcina, myself & too many others to name here popped up on there under silly names before popping up on the main page as serious rasslin writers. Of course, there were plenty of good, kind-hearted folks that were wise enough not to make their hay doing such silly things, and I keep in touch with them over at offtheteam.com.

As you’d expect from people that have been talking to each other online for over a decade, they have some things in common. One of them being an inexplicable shared fandom of the Philadelphia Eagles. None of these people are from Philly. We’re talking people from Missouri, Tennessee, Winnipeg, places all over the continent. Yet, they’ve rooted for the Eagles since childhood.

So I expect them to be most outraged with my list of the top 5 Eagles quarterbacks.

5. Ron Jaworski

Jaworski had three largely uneventful seasons with the Rams before being traded to the Eagles in 1977. Dick Vermeil decided that Jaws was his guy, and stuck with him through two largely mediocre seasons, though the second did mark the Eagles’ first postseason appearance since 1960. 1980 was Jaworski’s best season, throwing for 3,529 yards & 27 touchdowns while leading the Eagles to Super Bowl XV. They came up short against the Raiders, but Jaworski was still honored with a Pro Bowl selection & multiple Player of the Year awards, although the AP opted to honor Brian Sipe with theirs.

Jaworski set an NFL record by starting 116 consecutive games for the Eagles, and held most of the franchise passing records until Donovan McNabb came along in the 2000s. After retiring, Jaws became one of ESPN’s most in-depth NFL analysts, watching more game tape than anybody in the history of the network.

4. Nick Foles

Foles was drafted in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft, brought in to eventually replace then-starter Michael Vick, whose performance was trending downward & who had quite a bit of mileage on his tires. After a false start in 2012, 2013 became Foles’ season to shine. Dude threw 27 touchdowns & only 2 interceptions, breaking a Tom Brady record for best TD/INT ratio in NFL history. Week 8 against the Raiders saw him throw for over 400 yards & 7 touchdowns, attaining a perfect passer rating. That said, he only started 10 games that season, and only started 8 in 2014 after breaking his collarbone. He went to St. Louis in 2015, struggled, then went to Kansas City in 2016 to back up Alex Smith.

Foles had become a backup quarterback. Philadelphia brought him back in 2017 to do just that for Carson Wentz. The Eagles had a pretty good season going, things were running smoothly until Wentz suffered a torn ACL during Week 14. Foles came in, inheriting a team that had clinched the NFC East title & a playoff berth. What happened next will be talked about in Philly forever. Big Nick led the Eagles over the Falcons in the divisional round, trounced the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game, and shocked the world by defeating Tom Brady’s Patriots in the Super Bowl. Foles was the easy choice for game MVP, throwing for 343 yards & 3 touchdowns. Oh, and he also became the first player to both throw a touchdown pass & catch a touchdown pass in the Super Bowl. Philly Special.

As I write this, it seems like Super Bowl LII will go down as Nick Foles’ career highlight. He got paid in Jacksonville, fell out of favor there & got traded to Chicago, where he’s backing up Andy Dalton or Mitch Trubisky or Justin Fields or whoever ends up starting. No matter what else happens, Big Nick will always have that one special night that made him immortal.

3. Tommy Thompson

We go back to the late 1940s, when the Eagles went to three NFL Championship Games and won three of them. It was a different time for quarterbacks & the passing game, so Thompson’s stats don’t pop off the page. They did back in 1950 though, when he retired as one of four men to throw for over 10,000 yards. The other three: Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman & Otto Graham.

Thompson’s peak came in 1948, when he threw for 1,965 yards & 25 touchdowns with a QB rating of 98.4, ridiculously high for the time period. Neither championship game the Eagles won featured a stellar performance from Thompson, as both games were marred by weather. (This is why they play the Super Bowl in domes & Florida.) Thompson’s contributions have largely been forgotten, as he’s one of four retired NFL quarterbacks with multiple championships not inducted in the Hall of Fame. Seems like an oversight.

2. Randall Cunningham

Cunningham was taken by the Eagles in the second round of the 1985 NFL Draft, and was the eventual successor to Ron Jaworski. He got attention early on with his scrambling ability, which Buddy Ryan tried to use on third downs while Jaworski was still the starting QB as something to keep defenses on their toes. Unfortunately, the Eagles’ offensive line wasn’t too great, and Cunningham managed to get sacked 72 times in 1986 even though Jaws was still the starting QB. Second-most in NFL history. This would be a problem throughout Cunningham’s career, as he ended up the sixth-most sacked quarterback in NFL history & led the league five times in the category.

Tough to win games when you’re constantly moving backward, but Cunningham could also move forward pretty well. After a bumpy couple of years, Randall found his groove in 1988. He’d go to three straight Pro Bowls and lead the Eagles to three straight playoff appearances. His selection by NFL players as starting QB in 88 marked the first time an African-American quarterback started a Pro Bowl. He would end up winning the game’s MVP award. He would win the Bert Bell Award in 1988 & 1990. Randall had a career high with 942 rushing yards in 1990, but his rushing days would mostly come to an end after suffering a torn ACL in Week 1 of the 1991 season.

Cunningham missed the rest of that season, but would earn the Comeback Player of the Year award in 1992. The season also marked the Eagles’ first playoff victory since 1980. However, Cunningham’s athletic ability took a dip after the knee injury, and he ended up playing limited time during 1993 & 94. A change of direction led to Cunningham retiring after the 1995 season, a retirement which would last until he signed with Minnesota prior to the 1997 season. Cunningham was one of the most fun QBs to watch of his era, and I’m pretty sure he inspired most of my Internet friends that aren’t from Philly to be Eagles fans. Reggie White too, he was pretty good back in the day.

Honorable Mention: Norm Van Brocklin

As we know, Van Brocklin spent most of his Hall of Fame career with the LA Rams. His last three seasons were in Philadelphia, and some may say he went & saved the best for last. Three straight Pro Bowl selections, including an All-Pro berth & an MVP award in 1960, when he led the Eagles to the NFL Championship. He went out on top, and it’d be the last league championship the Eagles would win until 2017.

1. Donovan McNabb

To say that Eagles fans were unhappy when McNabb was taken with the second overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft would be an understatement. They were convinced that Texas running back Ricky Williams was going to be the pick, and would carry the Eagles to new heights in the 2000s. Considering the Eagles’ main quarterback in 1998 was Koy Detmer, I don’t know why Eagles fans thought they wouldn’t be taking a quarterback with that pick. “Nah, we’ve got Koy & Doug Pederson, we’re good.”? C’mon man. As it happened, three quarterbacks were the top three picks, and McNabb was the only one that panned out.

The early 2000s were a boom period for Philly, and McNabb was at the center of it. He earned five straight Pro Bowl selections from 2000-04 & led the Eagles to four straight NFC Championship Games from 2001-04. 2004 was McNabb’s finest season, attaining career highs in completion percentage (64.0) and touchdowns (31) & becoming the first quarterback to throw more than thirty touchdowns and fewer than ten interceptions in a season. After struggling in the Eagles’ first three NFC title game appearances, McNabb got over the hump & led the Eagles to Super Bowl XXXIX. Unfortunately, the Eagles would come up short to Tom Brady’s Patriots, while McNabb’s performance drew questions about his health that are still speculated about today.

McNabb would spend most of the mid-2000s dealing with injuries, but was effective while healthy, and took the Eagles to another NFC Championship Game in 2008. His last Pro Bowl season would take place in 2009, also his final season in Philly. While McNabb wasn’t able to take the Eagles to a Super Bowl championship, he was still a force behind one of the franchise’s finest eras. The Eagles went to the playoffs eight out of McNabb’s ten seasons as starting quarterback, while having only one losing season. McNabb was the fourth quarterback in history to attain more than 30,000 yards, 200 passing touchdowns, 3,000 rushing yards & 20 rushing touchdowns. The three before him? Fran Tarkenton, John Elway & Steve Young. Not bad.

Thanks for reading! Next time…aw hell, the Pittsburgh Steelers? Can we just skip them?