Al Wistert's Career Led to No. 70 Being Retired
The challenge wasn’t identifying the top three players to wear the No. 70 in Eagles history.
No, it was trying to find out more about the player who wore it best and becuse he wore it so well had it retired by the Eagles, one of nine players in team history to earn that achievement.
There are now 70 days until the Eagles are supposed to open the regular season in Landover, Md., against the Washington … insert nickname here, and that means our jersey countdown to kickoff arrives at that number.
Anyone steeped in Eagles history knows that Al Wistert is the best to ever wear that number.
The only other players who wore the No. 70 were Leo Brennan, Joe Frank, Don Owens, and Jim Skaggs.
The Eagles retired Wistert’s number in 1952, just a few seasons removed from the 1948 and 1949 NFL championships he helped the Eagles win as a two-way lineman, though it was as an offensive tackle where he excelled.
The number, however, was handed out twice even after it was retired, to Owens from 1958-60 and to Skaggs from 1963-1972.
Skaggs and Owens could be ranked second and third in our rankings, but, really, the number belongs to just Wistert.
Skaggs would be the runner-up in this case. He played nine years with the Eagles, making 83 starts on the interior of the Eagles’ offensive line. Owens played just three years in Philly on the defensive line.
As a reflection of that period of football, Wistert stood just 6-1, and weighed 215 pounds.
He was drafted in the fifth round of the 1943 draft by the Eagles/Steelers and signed on for $3,800 (equivalent to $56,145 today) and had to withstand some animosity from veteran players for having signed such a large contract.
Wistert was an All-Pro in eight of his nine seasons with the Eagles, though the team was called the Steagles for one season after Pittsburgh and Philly merged for year during World War II.
He was the Eagles’ team captain for five straight seasons, from 1946-1950.
In 2005, Wistert voiced his disappointment for not being in the Pro Football Hall of Fame or on the Eagles’ Honor Roll.
The Eagles rectified that in 2009 when he, along with former quarterback Randall Cunningham, went into the team’s Honor Roll and just this past year.
Wistert passed away in 2016 at the age of 95.
