Election 2007: Eagles all-time wide receivers

By Os Davis  |   Thursday, June 28, 2007  |  Comments( 1 )

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Happy anniversary to the Philadelphia Eagles franchise, which celebrates 75 seasons of football in 2007. (Actually, this probably technically shouldn't be considered a 75th anniversary per se, as there was that halcyon year of 1943 featuring the merged Phil-Pitt Steagles. But who celebrates a 74.5th?)

As part of the promotional hoopla around the midnight green-and-silver jubilee, PhiladelphiaEagles.com is running a poll asking you, the NFL addict just looking for an excuse to run through this and 31 other Web sites while nothing is actually happening in the league, to vote for members for the Eagles' all-time roster.

This week (get those mouse-clicking fingers ready), it's a vote for wide receiver. And what can this would-be participant in the democratic process say except "Whoa"? Quite a ballot it is...

Analysis by Hall Of Famer Ray Didinger accompanies each ballot in the weekly positional voting with his analysis. For the WRs, the co-author of the Eagles Encyclopedia enthuses that "I can't think of too many other groups of wide receivers that are better than the one the Eagles have. ... if you had to pick the one area that the Eagles have had the highest level of talent and production in the 75 years of the franchise, you would have to say it is wide receiver."

Indeed. Take a look at the gang of eight the Eagles have posted for the position, leaving the nail-baiting voter to choose two. To make matters worse, one of your two picks is obvious: Harold Carmichael.

Those who saw him playing in the 1970s knew that Carmichael was about 7 feet tall and could leap another 20. In 13 seasons as an Eagle (he played all but two games in his career for Philly), Carmichael amassed 589 catches to lead the franchise all-time and ran off the unbelievable streak of 127 consecutive games with a reception.

In the quarterback category, Carmichael's late-career battery mate, Ron Jaworski, will probably be bested by Donovan McNabb, but Jaws admirers (and they are a legion) need to be thanking Carmichael for the career jump-start. In the first five seasons after being installed as starter in Philadelphia (1977-1981), Jaworski found Carmichael on just under one-quarter of his completions and one-third of his total yardage. Finally, this tandem led the team to its first Super Bowl appearance in XV.

All right, so it's Harold Carmichael at No. 1. And then...

Whoo, boy.

Mike Quick played for Philly throughout the '80s and was a perpetual Pro Bowler with an eye-popping 46 TDs in 101 games. Tommy McDonald, an Eagle from 1957-63, is a Hall of Famer whom Didinger "never [remembers] dropping a ball." (OK, he's probably exaggerating, but you get the point.)

Ben Hawkins, the Eagles' go-to guy when Norm Snead was quarterbacking, averaged 18.3 yards per reception over eight seasons (1966-73). From the '90s, it's sweet Fred Barnett and Irving Fryar, who surely had killer seasons with the Eagles (1,316 yards in 1997) but few.

And then there's...

No way.

Terrell Owens? They put Terrell Owens on this list?

Wait a minute ... Terrell freaking Owens?

OK, sure, T.O. had one of the better seasons at the position in recent memory in the Super Bowl season of 2004 with 1,200 yards to go along with 14 TDs in 14 games played. The bad boy topped everything off with an MVP-level performance in the Super Bowl while playing hurt.

But isn't this the guy "credited" with torpedoing the team in 2005? (As though the Eagles didn't have about 47 major injuries that season as well. As though the Eagles have been eliminated from contention since then.) Wasn't this guy a bad egg, a rotten apple, a cancer? Isn't the man still reviled in the otherwise City of Brotherly Love? What is he, the David Duke of this ballot?

Most importantly, how will PhiladelphiaEagles.com keep the team's detractors from voting for T.O. Imagine the horror when Eagles officials have to watch the anniversary show -- to debut on Channel 6, WPVI-TV Philadelphia in September! -- only to see the McNabb-to-Owens again. Hey, I don't even have anything against the Eagles and I'm tempted...

RealFootball365.com: Where there's no such thing as an offseason for Philadelphia Eagles football.
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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