***
As my interest in football, and its history, has grown over the years, I've found many fascinating little nuggets. Some of the most fascinating involve the paths franchises have taken to form the league we know today. The paths taken by the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers may be the most fascinating of all.
The Steelers, called the Pirates initially, and the Eagles started innocently enough in 1933. That innocence would be shattered 8 years later. In the first 2 decades of the NFL's existence, all teams struggled. All teams carried financial concerns. Most teams had performance concerns. The Eagles and the Steelers/Pirates had both. With their decades-long recent success, it may be difficult to think of the Steelers as a struggling team. The first 40 years were pretty much the exact opposite of the last 55. Pirates owner, Art Rooney, had reportedly lost as much as $150,000 over the first 8 years. Perhaps the name was the problem. To hopefully inspire a public connection to the team, Rooney changed his team's name to the Steelers in 1940. The Eagles weren't doing much better as the '40s opened. deBenneville (let's call him Bert) Bell was a rich kid with a passion for football. In owning the Eagles, he satisfied the latter at the expense of his father's money. Bert Bell was to become such an important figure in the league's history that it's a bit surprising how close he was to losing it all. Even in those tough, naive early days, Bell made an impact on the league as the players selection draft was his idea.
As Bell and Rooney were facing difficult choices, Alexis Thompson wanted a piece of the football game. Thompson, ironically, was the heir to the Republic Steel Corporation fortune. Preferring Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, Thompson first tried to buy the Eagles. Bell passed. So, Thompson tried the Steelers. Rooney was reluctant. Somewhere, somehow, Bell got the idea of Rooney selling the Steelers and then using that money to buy a half-ownership of the Eagles. According to Rooney, "Bell did all the dickering." Thompson bought the Steelers for about $160,000. Rooney then bought a 50% share of the Eagles for $80,000. Everything seemed fine. However, 4 months later, Thompson had not opened offices in Pittsburgh. It didn't seem that Thompson cared much for doing business in Pittsburgh. Fearful of his hometown losing its football team, Rooney proposed what his son, Dan, referred to as a "switcheroo." Rooney/Bell would trade the Eagles to Thompson for the Steelers. It was more a switch of cities than teams. No cash or other considerations were involved. Thompson clearly preferred Philadelphia over Pittsburgh. Rooney and Bell actually picked their "favorite" players from the 2 teams to form the new Steelers team. Roughly half of each team switched to the other. Both reconfigured teams struggled in their first season, 1941, with the Steelers finishing 1-9-1 and the Eagles finishing 2-8-1. The Eagles won and tied in the match-ups of the 2 teams. The Steelers managed the first winning season in franchise history the following year as they finished with a 7-4 record in 1942. The Eagles stumbled to a 2-9 record. WWII jumbled the rosters and the league. The financial and player demands of the War years forced the Eagles and Steelers to join forces and form one team in 1943, the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh Steagles. Better days were on the way. By the end of the decade, the Eagles were a powerhouse, winning championships in '48 and '49. For the Steelers the winning, a lot of winning, was still about thirty years away.
Franchise movement and changes were fairly common in the first few decades of the league. In my opinion, none was as crazy as the "switcheroo" of the Steelers and Eagles. The current Colts' franchise history is kind of wacky, but that's for another day. NFL franchises are tracked kind of like pink slips. Franchises are sold to another owner or back to the league (It's been quite a while since this has happened.), but the franchise can be tracked through different cities or incarnations. With that in mind, the team that we now know as the Pittsburgh Steelers, winners of 6 Super Bowls, was the Philadelphia Eagles from 1933-1940. The team that we now know as the Philadelphia Eagles was once the Pittsburgh Pirates/Steelers. Fascinating stuff.
