The Eagles all-time team: Donovan McNabb earns the QB spot

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Over the next few weeks, we'll be unveiling our all-time Eagles team. 

We enlisted the help of Eagles reporters Reuben Frank and Dave Zangaro, Quick Slants hosts Derrick Gunn and Barrett Brooks and Quick Slants producer Mike Mulhern for voting. 

We asked each person to rank their top five players at 16 different positions. A first-place vote was worth five points, a second-place vote was worth four, and so on. 

Up first: Quarterback

Complete voting 

1. Donovan McNabb = 24 
2. Randall Cunningham = 17
3. Nick Foles = 15
4. Ron Jaworski = 9
5. Norm Van Brocklin = 7
6. Carson Wentz = 3

The breakdown
McNabb wasn’t a unanimous No. 1, but he got four of five first-place votes and Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles got the other. But Randall Cunningham edged out Foles for second, with two second-place votes and three third-place votes. No two voters agreed on Foles, who got a first-place vote, a second-place vote, a third-place vote, a fourth-place vote and a fifth-place vote.

Current quarterback Carson Wentz got only two votes — a fourth and a fifth. Norm Van Brocklin, the Eagles’ QB in the 1960 NFL Championship Game, got a second-place vote, the only top-three vote that didn’t go to McNabb, Foles or Cunningham.

Did we get it right? 
Sure. Say what you want about McNabb, like him or not, the guy won nine playoff games, reached five NFC Championship Games and got the Eagles to the playoffs in eight of the nine seasons that he was healthy enough to start at least 10 games. McNabb holds every franchise career passing record and won a franchise-record 92 games.

You can make a case for Foles based on his record-setting 2013 Pro Bowl season and 2017 Super Bowl run. He accomplished something no other quarterback has done since 1960 —win a championship. But Foles only started 32 regular-season games in an Eagles uniform, never more than 10 in a season. When it comes to contributions over a career, McNabb has to get the edge.

Complete team: 
QB: Donovan McNabb 

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