Frankford Yellow Jackets - Philadelphia Eagles

Philadelphia Eagles

The NFL spent two years searching for a new team to operate in Philadelphia. Finally, on July 9, 1933, the NFL granted an expansion franchise to Bert Bell and Lud Wray, and awarded them the remains of the Yellow Jackets organization. Bell and Wray named their team the Philadelphia Eagles, after the symbol of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Some people assume that the Yellow Jackets and the Eagles are the same franchise; however, that is not the case. Bell and Wray did not buy the Yellow Jackets team, but rather the rights to an NFL team in the Philadelphia area that formerly had belonged to the Frankford Athletic Association. The Yellow Jackets franchise had been revoked by the league in 1931. Due to the two-year period of dormancy, the Eagles do not claim the Yellow Jackets' history as their own, and the NFL considers the Eagles a 1933 expansion team for record-keeping purposes. Additionally, Bell and Wray assembled an almost entirely new team; almost no players from the 1931 Yellow Jackets ended up with the 1933 Eagles.

For the first few years of the Eagles' existence, however, they wore powder blue and yellow uniforms similar to those worn by the Yellow Jackets. Replicas were later worn as 1934 throwbacks in a game against the Detroit Lions on September 23, 2007 as part of the team's 75th anniversary season. Many members of the media mistakenly stated that the Eagles were still known as the Yellow Jackets that year.