It’s yet another Steagles reunion.
Two years ago, the Eagles and Steelers got together in Philly, thanks to the formula for determining the 17th game. The Eagles won, 35-13.
On Sunday, they’ll do it again. And the Steelers will try to win in Philadelphia for the first time since October 1965. (Pittsburgh is 0-10.)
Twenty-two years before the last time the Steelers won in Philadelphia, they joined forces. Due to World War II, they merged the teams. They were unofficially known as the Steagles.
“It was done out of necessity,” Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. said in 1974, via Ray Didinger from a 2018 item for the Eagles’ website. “The war was going on and most of the players were in the service. A lot of the coaches, too. We didn’t have the manpower to field a team and neither did the Eagles but we thought we could make it work if we pooled our resources.”
The Steagles went 5-4-1.
As separate entities, the Steelers and Eagles have played 80 prior times. The Eagles lead 49-29, with three ties. The Steelers are 8-6 since the AFL-NFL merger took Pittsburgh to the AFC. Still, they haven’t won on the other side of the Commonwealth since five years before the formation of the AFC and the NFC.
The presence of quarterback Russell Wilson might give them a bump. He’s 6-0 all time against the Eagles, and 6-1 as the Pittsburgh starter.