The Marquee Matchup between the 49ers and the "Steagles"

So the Eagles stink. This we all can agree on. They don’t even have three healthy wide receivers.
They probably can’t compete with the 49ers, but could they compete if they were to combine rosters with another team? It’s a worthwhile question. The last couple weeks, the Jets and Giants could have joined forces into one “super” team from New Jersey and the 49ers still would have creamed them. That’s how good the 49ers are and how bad the Jets and Giants seem through the first month of the season.
But could the 49ers beat a Pennsylvania super team? I’m talking an Eagles-Steelers combo. Call them the Steagles. Pittsburgh isn't playing this weekend because its opponent, the Titans, had a coronavirus outbreak. So the Steelers have time to kill. And the Eagles could use lots of their players. And we all would like to watch a competitive game Sunday night.
Bring on the Steagles.
They were an actual team in 1943, because many NFL players fought in World War II. Meaning lots of teams didn’t have enough players to play -- kind of similar to today. So the Steelers and Eagles combined into one team called the Steagles and their record was 5-4-1. So there’s precedent for this discussion. And there’s still time for the NFL to do the right thing and send some Steelers to Santa Clara for all of our enjoyment.
Here’s what the Steagles starting lineup would look like:
QB: Ben Roethlisberger (Steelers)
RB: Miles Sanders (Eagles)
WR: Juju Smith-Schuster (Steelers)
WR: Diontae Johnson (Steelers)
WR: James Washington (Steelers)
TE: Zach Ertz (Eagles)
LT: Alejandro Villanueva (Steelers)
LG: Jamon Brown (Eagles)
C: Maurkice Pouncey (Steelers)
RG: Kevin Dotson (Steelers)
RT: Lane Johnson (Eagles)
RDE: T.J. Watt (Steelers)
RDT: Fletcher Cox (Eagles)
LDT: Javon Hargrave (Eagles)
LDE: Stephon Tuitt (Steelers)
LB: Bud Dupree (Steelers)
LB: Devin Bush (Steelers)
LB: Duke Riley (Eagles)
CB: Darius Slay (Eagles)
FS: Minkah Fitzpatrick (Steelers)
SS: Jalen Mills (Eagles)
CB: Joe Haden (Steelers)
HC: Mike Tomlin (Steelers)
So that’s nine Eagles and 13 Steelers against the 49ers. An excellent defense and a terrific offense with future Hall of Fame quarterback.
Who would win?
I’m picking the 49ers. According to my sources, the Steagles have chemistry issues.

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.
Follow grantcohn