Kelly green jerseys pop, but the Eagles were more super in midnight green

You surely know by now that the Eagles plan to wear kelly green and silver throwback uniforms in two regular-season games this year. Perhaps you even stood in a long line at an Eagles Pro Shop to pay at least $130 for one of the new jerseys. They are pretty sharp.

These uniforms are replicas of what the Eagles wore from 1985 to 1995, an era during which they were coached by the blustery Buddy Ryan. Their roster in that decade included the gifted quarterback Randall Cunningham and the notoriously vicious Gang Green defense.

Yet the hubbub and nostalgia about the Eagles’ kelly green jerseys miss one thing: In that color, during that era, they could not win the games that really mattered.

Rock-solid Eagles fans know that the late 1980s and early 1990s was a completely different era, when the team played at raucous, hostile Veterans Stadium and success was hard-earned. In the 11 seasons they played in those kelly green uniforms, the Eagles won exactly two playoff games, and none under Ryan.

Since turning the team’s primary color to midnight green, the Eagles have been to three Super Bowls, winning one (finally) in 2018. They lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl in February, but have the talent to get back, maybe this season.

Yes, the Eagles won more than they lost in kelly green and silver uniforms, and the colossal, late Hall of Fame defensive end Reggie White certainly made those Eagles legendary. But they were not invincible.

The Eagles had a 98-83-1 overall record from 1985 to 1995. Moreover, they wore white jerseys nearly twice as often — 117 games to 65 — as they wore the snazzy green that we will see again on Oct. 22 and Nov. 26. They even won a little more often in that era wearing white than green.

Of the three playoff games they played in kelly green, the Eagles lost them all. Their final game in the uniforms was on Jan. 7, 1996, a 30-11 playoff loss to the hated Dallas Cowboys — which coincided, symbolically, with a two-foot snowstorm in Philadelphia. Who would want to relive that?

The Eagles played one game in kelly green throwback uniforms in 2010, but those were replicas of uniforms worn by the Eagles in 1960, when they won the NFL championship. (The Eagles lost that 2010 game to the Green Bay Packers, 27-20.)

Then the team bid kelly green goodbye, except nearly everyone in Philadelphia wanted it back. So Jeffrey Lurie, the Eagles’ owner since 1994, announced a comeback last year.

“For me, it’s very simple. I just think it’s a better looking uniform,” Ray Didinger, the retired Hall of Fame sportswriter for the Philadelphia Bulletin and the Daily News, wrote me in an email. “Over the years, I’ve gently prodded Jeff Lurie about bringing it back. I’m delighted that he finally did.”

Kelly green does pop, and the helmets with silver wings will look great when glinting under the lights at the Linc. Maybe it will make the team look more intimidating.

At no time was intimidation more apparent than on Nov. 12, 1990, a 28-14 victory on Monday Night Football over Washington at the Vet that became known as “The Body Bag Game.” The Eagles knocked out nine Washington players, including two quarterbacks.

“They’ll have to be carted off in body bags,” Ryan growled before kickoff.

I covered that game for The Inquirer. In 40 years as a sportswriter, I have never been to anything quite like it. Fans, many of whom were well-lubricated because of the late start, were in a frenzy. Some brought actual body bags to the game. Others, especially those in the infamously rowdy 700 Level at the Vet, chanted, “Body bags!”

“There isn’t great historical significance in the sense of what those teams accomplished” wearing kelly green, Didinger said. “The fact is, they didn’t accomplish that much.” Rather than the results on the scoreboard, it was more about the way those teams played.

“The fact is, they didn’t accomplish that much.”

The kelly green Eagles were entertaining. They had a personality. Their defense was nasty. That’s what the fans remember.

Didinger, 76, grew up in Delaware County and was a rabid Eagles fan, particularly of the late Hall of Fame end Tommy McDonald, with whom he forged a friendship that became the basis for a play, Tommy and Me.

McDonald played for the Eagles from 1957 to 1963, when they played their home games at Franklin Field, on Penn’s campus. Like Eagles teams from the 1930s, they wore kelly green, too. So when these Eagles wear kelly green, Didinger will remember his childhood.

“The first jersey you see your favorite team wear is the one that stays with you forever,” he told me.

Dave Caldwell lives in Manayunk. He is a native of Lancaster County and a Temple University graduate. He was an Inquirer staff writer from 1986 to 1995, covering the Eagles among other sports topics.