A Curveball to Determine the Best to Wear No. 14

Time for a curveball.

With two weeks until the season opener, why not?

With that in mind, Doug Pederson is the Eagles top-ranked player to wear the No. 14 in team history.

OK, he wore it for only two years, but the rules are getting bent a bit here because Pederson became the first-ever coach to lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl championship, something that had eluded every coach before him.

So, really, that 2-7 he had in 1999 while keeping the seat warm for rookie Donovan McNabb means nothing.

Pederson is the ultimate redemption story.

He was primarily a backup quarterback for 10 years in the NFL. He made 17 starts and went 3-14 in those chances.

Again, it doesn’t matter.

He led the Eagles to a Super Bowl.

That’s what matters and that is why he is at the head of the No. 14 class.

Here’s the rest:

Current number 14:

UNASSIGNED. Until Tuesday, the number had belonged to receiver Robert Davis. An injury, however, led Davis to be waived/injured as the team signed tight end Tyrone Swoopes, who was assigned No. 48.

Top 3 to wear number 14:

3. Riley Cooper. It’s difficult to move past the racial slur that Cooper got in trouble for during a Kenny Chesney concert many years ago, but the Eagles somehow did, and, well, Cooper had a solid six-year run in Philadelphia. He averaged 14.3 yards per catch on 169 catches.

While it’s true that Cooper had a high number of targets (320) in his time with the Eagles, he also had 18 career touchdowns. His best receiving-yardage season was 2014 when he 577 and in 2013 he eight TDs.

2. A.J. Feely. The backup quarterback had his moments during a career that began as a fifth-round pick in 2001 and included a pair of two, two-year stints with the Eagles.

As a rookie, he came off the bench in the fourth quarter of the season finale to throw two touchdowns in a 26-second span to bring the Eagles back from a 13-3 deficit to a 17-13 win. He started four games the following year, after both starter Donovan McNabb and backup Koy Detmer got hurt, and won all four starts taking the Eagles from an 8-3 record to 12-3, and helped Philadelphia take the No. 1 seed.

Feeley was traded to the Dolphins, who gave up a second-round pick in 2005, which the Eagles turned into WR Reggie Brown.

Feeley lasted one year in Miami before returning to Philadelphia for two more seasons that saw him play eight games with five starts in that span.

1. Doug Pederson. See above.

Runner-up:

Pete Liske. The quarterback played 28 games in two seasons with the Eagles, from 1971-72, and did not do as well as he had done in the Canadian Football League. In fairness to Liske, he played on some bad teams. In the CFL, he threw for 40 touchdowns and 4,470 yards in 1967 with the Calgary Stampeders. In 1968 he led his team to the Grey Cup, but lost that game.

Others: Swede Hanson, Rudy Gollomb, Woody Dow, Bob Gambold, Pete Liske, Marty Horn, Rick Tuten, Jeff Wilkins, Marcus Johnson, Mike Wallace, and Robert Davis.

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