The ultimate Eagles Villains honorable mentions
All week at NBC Sports Philadelphia, we’re debating the biggest villains in Philly sports history. Today we begin with Eagles. You can vote here.
The four greatest villains in Eagles history are Norman Braman, Jadeveon Clowney, Michael Irvin and Chip Kelly, according to our panel of experts.
But they’re certainly not the only villains.
Here’s a look at our Greatest Eagles Villains honorable mentions!
Troy Aikman
The Eagles had Aikman’s number early in his career. They won their first six meetings against the future Hall of Famer, and Aikman managed just 3 TDs and 10 INTs in those games. But the tables turned, and Aikman went 12-5 the rest of his career against the Eagles. During the entire decade of the 1990s, the Eagles reached the conference semifinals twice, and both times Aikman was there waiting for them and engineering embarrassing blowout losses. Aikman has the 3rd-most QB wins ever against the Eagles, and Aikman, Drew Brees and Kurt Warner are the only QBs to beat the Eagles twice in the postseason.
Ronde Barber
If there’s any one play that really exemplifies the Andy Reid Era in Philly – close but no cigar – it’s Ronde Barber prancing 92 yards down the field at the Linc after picking off Donovan McNabb in the 2002 NFC Championship Game. Barber was an Eagles killer. More specifically, he was a Donovan McNabb killer. He had three pick-6’s against Donovan, sacked him twice and stripped him once. McNabb had 10 career pick-6’s, three of them by Ronde.
Tiki Barber
The No. 3 rusher ever against the Eagles, behind only Jim Brown and Emmitt Smith. Barber had eight 100-yard games against the Eagles, again third-most behind Brown and Smith. But what really was most aggravating about Barber is how the Giants owned the Eagles early in his career. The Giants won nine straight games against the Eagles from 1997 through 2001, with Barber smirking his way through all nine of them.
Joe Jurevicius
Can you be a villain thanks to just one play? Oh yeah. Eagles up 7-3 on the Buccaneers late in the first quarter of the 2002 NFC Championship Game. Bucs facing a 3rd-and-2 on their own 24-yard-line. All the momentum on the Eagles’ side. Get a stop and the stadium will get even louder. You know the rest. Jurevicius takes a short pass from Brad Johnson and races 71 yards down to the 5-yard-line as Blaine Bishop hobbles haplessly after him. Dawk saved the touchdown, but Mike Alstott scored two plays later, and the Bucs went on to a 27-10 win and then a Super Bowl championship over the Raiders.
Rich Kotite
The dude is probably best-known for his chart getting wet. But what really aggravates Eagles fans about Kotite is that he was the anti-Buddy. He was fiercely loyal to Norman Braman and seen as complicit in the free agent exodus of 1992 through 1994. And you can’t beat a guy who campaigns for a new contract by saying, “I just want to be judged by my performance,” then immediately turns a 7-2 start into a 7-9 finish, then goes 3-13 and 1-15 with the Jets. That means Richie the K was 4-35 in 39 games after saying he only wants to be judged by his performance.
Pete Morelli
You don’t get many officials as despised as Pete Morelli. The breaking point as a 2017 game (that the Eagles won) when the Eagles were penalized 10 times for 126 yards and the Panthers once for one yard. At that point, in the last four Eagles games Morelli officiated, the Eagles were cited for 40 infractions for 396 yards and their opponents 8 times for 72 yards. Fans even started a petition demanding that commissioner Roger Goodell not allow Morelli to serve as referee for any more Eagles games. It got nearly 80,000 signatures. Interestingly, Morelli hasn’t worked any Eagles games since.
Terrell Owens
Merrill Reese was on the Eagle Eye podcast recently and said this: “Terrell Owens destroyed that team.” You can’t put it any more succinctly. T.O. had an incredible season in 2004 but when a new contract didn’t instantly materialize, he set out to create as much dissension and discord as he could. One of the most talented football players in history but he’ll always be remembered more than anything for tearing apart a team that he helped take to the Super Bowl.
Bryce Paup
On the 11th play of the 1991 season, Eagles-Packers at Lambeau, Randall Cunningham dropped back and fired incomplete to Fred Barnett. Bryce Paup came up the middle and smashed into Randall’s left knee, shredding his posterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament. Cunningham was done for the season, and the Eagles were left with brittle Jim McMahon, Jeff Kemp, Brad Goebel and Pat Ryan at quarterback. Despite one of the best defenses in NFL history – the Eagles allowed 221 yards per game, fewest ever in a 16-game season – the Eagles missed out on the playoffs.
Drew Pearson
With the 2017 draft in Philly, Pearson walked to the podium at the Art Museum to announce the Cowboys’ second-round pick while a chorus of boos rained down on him. Here’s how he responded: “All right. How about dem Cowboys!” he said. “I want to thank the Eagle fans for allowing me to have a career in the NFL. Thank you. I am honored as an undrafted free agent to be selected to make the Cowboys’ second-round draft pick and on behalf of the five-time World Champion Dallas Cowboys, Hall of Fame owner Jerry Jones, Gene Jones and the Jones family, coach Jason Garrett, all the Cowboys players that played before me, that played with me and played after me. With the 60th pick in the second round, the Dallas Cowboys select defensive back from Colorado Chidobe Awuzie.” A year later, with the draft in Dallas, David Akers trolled the Cowboys right back as he was announcing the Dallas Goedert pick: “Dallas, the last time you won the Super Bowl, these draft picks weren’t BORN!”
Michael Strahan
The John Runyan-Michael Strahan battles were epic, and as the battles got nastier, so did the trash talking. And as Runyan gradually began to dominate Strahan later in their careers, he became more and more legendary in our eyes and Strahan became more and more of a villain. The fraudulent way Strahan broke the NFL sack record in 2011 made Strahan even more of a villain. Strahan went into the season finale against the Packers with 21 ½ sacks, half a sack fewer than Mark Gastineau’s 1984 record. In the final minutes of the game, with the Packers safely up 35-25, Brett Favre let Strahan sack him so he could break the record. No true champion does that.
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