The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles will meet for the 82nd time in the Battle of Pennsylvania in Week 15. The Eagles enter this Sunday’s meeting with a hefty 49-29-1 lead in the all-time series, and the Steelers haven’t won a game in Philly since Lyndon B. Johnson was still in office. The fact that they are the only two franchises hailing from Pennsylvania means that they have always had a bitter rivalry, even when they merged to form the “Steagles” in 1943.
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After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the USA entered the fray in World War II. Unfortunately for the NFL, most of the men who were eligible to play football were also of the right age to fight for their country. The fledgling league lost over 600 players to the United States Armed Forces in the mid-1940s.
Two of the most hard-hit franchises were the Steelers and Eagles. They were only able to field a full team in 1943 by merging into the “Phil-Pitt Combine”, colloquially known as the “Steagles”.
The history of the Steelers and Eagles had always been intertwined – they were founded on the same day, July 8, 1933. Unfortunately, both franchises struggled throughout their first decade of existence. The pair had just one winning season combined between them entering 1943.
Early in the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pronounced sports an important diversion during wartime. The NFL responded to FDR’s call by going against the grain—three other pro football leagues had suspended operations—by going ahead with the 1943 NFL season.
However, with the smaller player pool, there were some issues. The Cleveland Rams franchise was shuttered for the season. Meanwhile, the Steelers and Eagles were left with only six and 16 players under contract, respectively. Also, nearly every player drafted in the 1943 NFL Draft went off to war.
The birth of the Steagles
Steelers owner Art Rooney had already proposed the idea of a combined Philly-Pittsburgh team called the Pennsylvania Keystoners a few years earlier. Naturally, the idea came to him again during these dire times in 1943. Eagles owner Alexis Thompson was serving as a corporal in the Army at the time. Considering he had 16 players, he was not keen on the merge at first. However, he eventually agreed.
Because of the uneven split of players, the team was officially based in Philadelphia and wore the Eagles’ green and white colors. However, neither Steelers head coach Walt Kiesling nor Eagles head coach Greasy Neale would cede the top job, so the pair worked as co-head coaches. The situation quickly created a toxic relationship between the two. Neale was eventually given command of the offense, while Kiesling took over the defense.
The Steagles were also unique in that they were the only professional sports team in the country that required its players to maintain full-time war jobs. All 22 Steagles players worked in defense plants during the season, with football viewed as an extracurricular activity. One of those players, Ted Doyle, later learned that the work he’d done contributed to the U.S.’s Manhattan Project, which produced the first atom bomb.
Despite the difficulties early on (the Steagles fumbled 10 times in one game, which is still an NFL record 80 years later), the Steagles eventually came together. The Steagles finished 5-4-1, which was the first-ever winning season for the Eagles franchise and just the second for Pittsburgh.
The next year, the league was on its way back to full force. The Cleveland Rams returned to the fold, which left the NFL with an awkward 11-team league with the Steelers and Eagles once again parting ways. The commissioner requested one more year of the Steagles, but Philadelphia refused.
Art Rooney, who was still in desperate need of players, therefore merged his Steelers with the Chicago Cardinals in 1944. That team was called “Card-Pitt”, though most people called them “carpet” because teams walked all over them during their 0-10 season.
The war ended prior to the 1945 season. With the Brooklyn Tigers and Boston Yanks merging, the Steelers were free to become their own individual franchise again with the NFL back at its ideal 10-team level.
The Eagles bounced back quickly from the “Steagles” experiment, winning back-to-back NFL championships in 1948-1949. However, the Steelers became the laughingstock of the NFL for the next quarter-century. That is, until a little-known coach, Chuck Noll, selected a little-known DT, “Mean” Joe Greene, first overall in the 1969 NFL Draft, kicking off one of the great sports dynasties in American history.
