It’s About Time

Butch Buchanico spent 31 years as a Philadelphia cop. No more needs to be said about his toughness.

Yet standing in Alltel Stadium this week, Buchanico, now security director for the Philadelphia Eagles, had to push tears back from his eyes, bite his lip and compose himself before he could talk about what a Super Bowl victory would mean to his city.

“I have been through championships with all of them, the Phillies, the Flyers and the Sixers,” he said, “A championship for the Eagles would encompass everybody. They are a way of life in Philadelphia. It would mean so much.”

Radio talk show host Bill Werndl, raised in Philadelphia, said, “For Philly, winning the Super Bowl would be like it was for the U.S. the day we put a man on the moon.”

Said Harry Donahue, a Philadelphia sports announcer: “If the Eagles win, they will have to shut down the town for a week.”

It has been more than 21 years since Philadelphia last celebrated a championship in a major sport, the 76ers’ sweeping the Lakers in the 1983 NBA Finals. The last time the Phillies won the World Series was 1980. The last time the Flyers won the Stanley Cup was 1975.

But the longest drought belongs to the Eagles. It has been 44 years since they last won a title. In those days, it was the NFL championship. The AFL was completing its first season, the first Super Bowl was six years in the future and no one could imagine a Vince Lombardi Trophy because Lombardi was only in his second season as coach of the Green Bay Packers.

While there was joy in the streets after Philadelphia defeated Green Bay, 17-13, for the 1960 NFL title -- there was only one postseason game matching the two conference winners -- Eagle fans couldn’t conceive it was a joy that wouldn’t be felt again for generations. After all, a little more than a decade earlier, Philadelphia had been in three consecutive NFL title games, winning the last two.

Not only winning, but dominating to a degree never known before or since. After losing to the Chicago Cardinals, 28-21, in the 1947 championship game, the Eagles recorded the only consecutive title-game shutouts by one team in NFL history. They defeated the Cardinals, 7-0, in 1948 in a foot of snow at Shibe Park, and the Los Angeles Rams, 14-0, in 1949 at the Coliseum on a rain-soaked field.

In those seasons -- in which the NFL played 12 regular-season games -- the Eagles were a combined 20-3-1 and outscored opponents, 740-290.

After winning those consecutive championships, they became known as the “Duffel Bag Dynasty” because so many of their players were returning World War II veterans.

But after winning in 1960, those duffel bags came to symbolize players constantly coming and going on a roster that seemed to find new ways to lose each season. The year after their championship, the Eagles had one more winning season, going 10-4. But then came the big collapse, a period of frustration and futility that seemed to have no end as the Eagles failed to produce a winning record in 15 of the next 16 seasons.

Imagine how that went over in the so-called City of Brotherly Love, where, in reality, the love is doled out only to winners.

“I was a traffic cop at the corner of Broad and Pattison [site of Philadelphia’s stadium complex],” Buchanico said. “When the Eagles lose, everybody hates you. They curse every member of your family as they drive by. When the Eagles win, they want to give you a beer and bring you home for dinner.”

For years, there was more cursing than beer drinking.

“Philadelphia is an incredible football town,” Eagle owner Jeffrey Lurie said. “Boston is an amazing baseball town. The Red Sox have always been the most popular team in Boston and New England, even with all the success of the Celtic dynasty and the recent success of the Pats. Philadelphia is, with all its ups and downs, a football city. Eagle fans, with all their passion, are a lot like Red Sox fans.”

Werndl thinks Philadelphia fans compare themselves more to another city -- New York.

“They look to the success New York has had with its teams, especially baseball, and they get ticked off,” he said. “Philadelphia is tired of being the bridesmaid. It’s tough living in the shadow of New York.”

The Eagles briefly emerged from that shadow under Coach Dick Vermeil, reaching their only other Super Bowl in the 1980 season. But in Super Bowl XV at New Orleans, they lost to the Oakland Raiders, 27-10.

And so 1960 remains the last shining moment.

The Eagles were led in that season by quarterback Norm “Dutch” Van Brocklin, who also threw the 73-yard touchdown pass to Tom Fears that clinched the Rams’ 24-17 victory over the Cleveland Browns in 1951, giving the Rams their only NFL title in Los Angeles.

Van Brocklin had two ways to dissect defenses: with his arm and his mind. He was able to hit a sprinting receiver in the hands from 75 yards away, and was able to spot a blitz formation in the five steps it took to get from the huddle to the line of scrimmage.

“Playing with Van Brocklin in that championship game was like being on the field with a head coach,” said Tommy McDonald, a running back and receiver who not only joined Van Brocklin in that 1960 backfield, but in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as well.

Van Brocklin joined an Eagle team that had finished 4-7-1, 3-8-1 and 4-8 the previous three seasons, and he didn’t turn it around instantly.

He probably thought he could have if not for one limitation: He wasn’t the coach. That title belonged to Buck Shaw, a soft-spoken leader, everything Van Brocklin was not.

“In those days, Van Brocklin concentrated on one thing,” McDonald said. “He got acquainted with all the players. He spent a lot of time watching and working with each one of us, finding out what we did best and worst, individually, so that later he could depend on us on any play he called. You’d see him out there day after day studying the players. Dutch was so smart, he got all the big things right.”

By 1960, Van Brocklin was ready to make his move, bringing his coach along for the ride.

“There was no such thing as offensive or defensive coordinators in those days,” McDonald said. “I think of [the 1960] Van Brocklin as football’s first offensive coach or coordinator. It was his team. He ran it.”

After finishing 10-2 in the regular season, Van Brocklin led the Eagles to the championship over a Packer team coached by Lombardi and quarterbacked by Bart Starr.

How did Van Brocklin do it?

“He knew more about what his players could do than Lombardi knew about his,” McDonald said. “And Van Brocklin was on the field calling the plays -- in constant touch with all of us -- while Lombardi had to stand on the sideline. Early in the game, when I beat a cornerback on a slant pass, Van Brocklin came up to me and asked, ‘What else can you get on that guy?’ When I told him, he called those passes too, and also mixed in the slant passes until the Packers caught on.

“Van Brocklin knew who he could trust and who he couldn’t after spending three years with us. I’ve often thought you could put a blindfold on Van Brocklin and he’d complete some of those passes to [fellow receiver Pete] Retzlaff and I.”

With Van Brocklin running the offense and linebacker Chuck Bednarik creating havoc on defense, the Eagles came from behind to win.

“If you want to win, you have to know what the other guys are doing, as well as your guys,” McDonald said. “And sometimes, it took Van Brocklin the whole first half to find out. But he always found them out.”

Van Brocklin, chosen as the league most valuable player that season, retired after that game, as did Shaw. Van Brocklin went on to become the first coach of the Minnesota Vikings, serving in that capacity from 1961 to 1966. He died at age 57 in 1983.

Donahue, the announcer, 12 years old on Dec. 26, 1960, when the Eagles won their only title, tape-recorded the radio broadcast of that game, figuring it would be nice to have a collection of Eagle championships.

More than 44 years later, the rest of that tape is still blank.

*

Correspondent Bob Oates contributed to this report.

*

(Begin Text of Infobox)

Used to Waiting

*

A look at Philadelphia’s last championship in the major sports:

*--* NFL -- 1960 * The Eagles defeated Green Bay, 17-13, in the title game. NBA -- 1982-83 * The 76ers swept the Lakers in a best-of-seven series. MLB -- 1980 * The Phillies beat Kansas City in six games. NHL -- 1974-75 * The Flyers defeated Buffalo, 4-2, in the Stanley Cup finals.

*--*