In the next few weeks, we will be unveiling our all-time Eagles team.
We enlisted the help of Eagles reporters Reuben Frank and Dave Zangaro, Quick Slants hosts Derrick Gunn and Barrett Brooks and Quick Slants producer Mike Mulhern for voting.
We asked each person to rank their top five players at 16 different positions. A 1st-place vote was worth five points, a 2nd-place vote was worth four, and so on.
Up today: Running back
Complete voting:
1. LeSean McCoy = 22
2. Steve Van Buren = 20
3. Wilbert Montgomery = 13
3. Brian Westbrook = 13
5. Duce Staley = 4
6. Ricky Watters = 3
The breakdown:
Shady McCoy wasn’t unanimous but he did take home three 1st-place votes, a 2nd-place vote and a 3rd-place vote to take the crown. McCoy is the Eagles’ all-time leading rusher, but Van Buren was a great player in the 1940s. He was a five-time All-Pro and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame back in 1965. He was a big part of the 1948 and 1949 championship teams.
NFL
Did we get it right?
I think so. I voted for Shady with the top spot but I certainly understand why it wasn’t unanimous. Van Buren has a real case. This is a case where we have two completely different eras going head to head. The historians would put Van Buren at No. 1 and that would be hard to argue against. But McCoy is the Eagles’ all-time leading rusher (6,792 yards) and was truly a special player during his time in Philly. It’s a shame his time in Philly got cut short because he would have rushed for 10,000 yards with the Eagles if he stayed.
The next four guys aren’t too shabby either. Montgomery was a two-time Pro Bowler and rushed for 1,000 yards three times with the Birds. Westbrook is probably underrated in the grand scheme of things; the dual threat was an All-Pro in 2007, when he set a then-Eagles record of 2,104 scrimmage yards.
And then Duce and Watters deserved votes too. Staley had three 1,000-yard seasons in his seven years as an Eagle. And Watters played for the Eagle for just three seasons but went over 1,000 yards in all three and made two Pro Bowls, the last two Pro Bowls of his 11-year NFL career.
Complete team:
QB: Donovan McNabb
RB: LeSean McCoy
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