Looking back to when Eagles almost went to Arizona

Baltimore waited 12 excruciating years for a team after Bob Irsay moved the Colts to Indianapolis in the middle of the night in 1984. St. Louis waited 8 years for a replacement for Bidwill's Cardinals. Houston was without an NFL team for 5 years following the Oilers' 1997 departure for Tennessee. Cleveland spent three seasons on the NFL shelf after Art Modell moved to Baltimore in '96.

"I have to believe they would have gotten another team fairly quickly," Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt said. "Philadelphia is an important market for this league. But I don't think it would have been the same there . The passion of the fans there for the Eagles is unique. It's based on the history of the franchise. You can't re-create that kind of thing."

During his long tenure as owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney has seen a lot of things he thought he'd never see. Like the Colts leaving Baltimore. Like the Browns leaving Cleveland. But Philadelphia without the Eagles?

"At the time, it seemed unthinkable to consider the NFL without the Eagles in Philadelphia,'' Rooney said. "I remember standing up at the emergency meeting we had after we learned Leonard was thinking of taking his team to Phoenix and saying, 'We can't let them move. Philadelphia is too important to us. It's where the country started.' I said, 'The Eagles are an institution there. We cannot let him go [to Arizona].' Whether we really could have stopped him, though, I don't know. Fortunately, he backed down and we never had to find out." *