Philadelphia Eagles: 30 greatest players in franchise history

Fact: Concrete Charlie is one of the best NFL nicknames ever bestowed on a player. Not only did middle linebacker/center Chuck Bednarik play a punishing brand of football, he used to sell concrete in the offseason when he wasn’t crushing the opposition as the first superstar of the Eagles. Simply put, Bednarik is Eagles football.

Philadelphia used the No. 1 overall pick in the 1949 NFL Draft on the two-time All-American out of Penn. Bednarik played both ways for the Eagles for 14 hall of fame seasons. He was a 10-time first-team All-Pro with the Eagles and an eight-time Pro Bowler. As a rookie in 1949, Bednarik would win his first of two NFL championships. The second would come in the latter part of his career in 1960.

Today, Bednarik is best known for two things: his famous hit of New York Giants running back Frank Gifford and being the namesake of the best award a defensive player could ever hope to garner in the college game: the Chuck Bednarik Award. Bednarik epitomized gridiron toughness during his hall of fame career.

He made the NFL’s All-Decade Team for the 1950s, the NFL’s 75th Anniversary Team, the Eagles Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame and has his No. 60 jersey retired by the Eagles organization. In 1967, Bednarik was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His Canton classmates include Joe Stydahar, Ken Strong and Emlen Tunnell. Bednarik would be No. 1 on many franchise’s greatest players lists, but we have one other guy we have to talk about…