Kennedy Brothers Once Considered Buying the Eagles

While Jack was in office.

Jeff Lurie, love him or hate him, is no Jack Kennedy. This week the NFL Network has dug up some old news that in 1962, John, Bobby, and Teddy Kennedy bandied about the idea of buying the Philadelphia Eagles, which they heard was on the block. According to writeup by the Inquirer‘s Frank Fitzpatrick, the sale price at the time was listed around $4 million, and Kennedy was worried he’d have nothing to do when his second term ended.

A sports-page junkie and football fanatic, JFK had read that the Eagles’ principal owner, James P. Clark, had recently died of a stroke. Reports said his team, just two years removed from an NFL championship, would be sold. “Jack and Bobby,” [sportswriter Bob O’Donnell] wrote, “thought it would be a terrific investment.” According to O’Donnell’s version, the president asked Ted to set up a meeting with Eagles management. The team’s president at the time was Frank McNamee, one of the “Happy Hundred” ownership group Clark had assembled in 1949. That meeting never took place. According to O’Donnell’s account, the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 scuttled whatever Eagles plans the Kennedys may have had.

The Patriots were only two years old at the time, and not really a big deal. But still, where’s the hometown loyalty, Kennedys? [Inquirer]