The Eagles unveiled their annual pre-season hype video today– it’s something they’ve been doing since 2013, when they began outsourcing the duties to branding agency 160over90. The new series is a marked improvement over the weekly cartoons the team used to produce.

I thought the video was pretty good, but the immediate Twitter reaction in my timeline was McKayla Maroney– not impressed (and also potentially an absolute Instagram inferno of cleav shots and a genuine disregard for tact in a full-on shift to become a celebutante in a Miley Cyrus-like race to post the raunchiest photo possible).

Anyway, reader (@bdoc87) compelled me to go through each of the five preseason videos and rank them. Consider it done:

5) 2015

Brian Dawkins narrated it, so we are predisposed and indeed compelled to like it. Problem: it doesn’t really hold up to the others. You can’t just stick Dawkins in something and expect it to be great. The voice-over is fine, but the accompanying video leaves a lot to be desired and the random ass Diplo appearance doesn’t help things.

 

4) 2014

https://youtu.be/rjzqbbvHHdc

I’m about to be suuuuuuuuuuper unpopular since this is held up as the canonical Eagles preseason hype video because Bradley Cooper narrated it. The Eagles’ were coming off an outstanding second half of 2013 and there was a lot to be excited about for the upcoming season. The problem is that Cooper, despite being ridiculously good-looking and the kind of guy – maybe the guy – you’d be OK loaning your significant other out to in order to “find out how it was,” isn’t a great narrator for this sort of thing and gave off a distinct Goodfellas vibe. We were about 10 seconds away from him taking us through the kitchen at an Italian restaurant to find a cook with an Eagles tattoo. There were a lot of highlights to work with from Chip’s first year, which they weaved into a thick science theme, but the video devolved into what in hindsight appears to be Schadenfreude. Actual line: “[The coach] is a rocket surgeon, a PhD in the TD.” He was talking about Chip Kelly.

 

3) 2017

I DON’T HATE IT! Not their best work, but I think it is appropriately modern and well-written. I really like the “thumbtack” refrain, even if I could do without the American Idiot pack of Emo teens preparing to stick it to Captain America’s team.

 

2) 2016

This is ranked so high almost solely due to the Jay Wright “bang” cameo. I’m easy.

 

1) 2013

https://youtu.be/CzK1S3BkjvA

The benchmark by which all of these videos should be measured. Every Fall: We Will Rise. Great voiceover. Excellent music. Strikes a perfect tone in our mentality while celebrating the best moments in Eagles history. The D-Jac stuff at the end makes me hard. This video still makes me want to run throw a wall. I won’t do that, of course, because I’m a big pussy, but I want to. The video came out at the start of Chip Kelly’s first season, when optimism was high, partially due to the fact that the Eagles had turned the page, and partially due to the fact that Chip promised to make football exciting. Bonus– the short video they came out with after Week 1 may have been even better:

https://vimeo.com/74293191

I still get choked up when I watch this. Good thing the coach wasn’t an insane dictator who fooled us all and traded away his speediest players!