"What I like about this group is the diversity of the players within the position. It's a good position for the Eagles, so good that L.J. Smith is not on the list. L.J. is a good tight end who has developed his game quite a bit. But I don't think he matches up to the eight players who are listed here.

"Pete Pihos is first on the list chronologically. Although they weren't playing true 'tight ends' back in those days, he wasn't a wide receiver, either. They were just called 'offensive ends' back then and they lined up right next to the tackles. They didn't split 'wide.'

"Initially, I suggested that Pete should be in the wide receiver category. Both all the other guys in that category were true 'wide receivers' – Tommy McDonald, Ben Hawkins, Harold Carmichael, Mike Quick, Irving Fryar, Fred Barnett and Terrell Owens.

"Pihos was a much different animal. What really convinced me was going back to George Allen's book, 'Pro Football's 100 Greatest Players' and seeing that he referred to Pihos as the NFL's 'first great tight end' In fact, in his position rankings, Allen had Pihos as the No. 1 tight end ahead of Mike Ditka and John Mackey. That's a pretty strong argument right there.

"Pete Retzlaff was in the first vanguard of guys in the 1960s when the tight end position was just evolving, just on the heels of Pihos. Retzlaff was initially a wide receiver who converted to tight end. He was just as good on the outside as he was on the inside. He wasn't the biggest guy – I think he played at between 215 and 220 pounds – but Retzlaff was also a really good blocker.

"In 1965, the Eagles moved Retzlaff to tight end and he caught 66 passes for 1,190 yards and 10 touchdowns. It was stunning how well he played. He was such a good pattern runner that Raymond Berry – considered the best pattern runner in football – studied tape of Pete Retzlaff's pattern running. That's how good Pete was at running a pass pattern, and that is why he was able to make the transition from outside receiver to tight end. He understood the footwork and he understood the positioning and the mechanics of running a pattern so well.

"Pete helped make the tight end position one of the marquee positions in football. Mike Ditka introduced the idea of the pass-catching tight end and John Mackey came along later and took it a step further, but right in the middle of that was Pete Retzlaff. Before those players, the tight ends blocked primarily.

"Young did not lack for confidence, I'll put it that way. He was a high draft pick from Southern Cal who proclaimed, as soon as he arrived in Philadelphia, that he was going to be the rookie of the year in the NFL. Nobody said stuff like that 30 years ago and he pretty much lived up to it. Charle was 6-foot-4, 230 pounds and he ran like a wide receiver. He was so graceful and so smooth, and Charle had enormous hands.

"Charle was also very difficult to bring down with the ball in his hands. One day he ran an end around in Minnesota and Vikings defensive back Paul Krause came up to tackle Young. Charle stuck his one arm out and straight-armed Krause and knocked Paul to the ground and walked into the end zone. It was one of those plays that made you say, 'Wow.' He made those plays on quite a regular basis.

"In Charle's first two seasons, he caught more passes than any NFL tight end to that point (63 in 1973 and 55 in 1974) in his first two seasons. That's how productive Charle was. Dick Vermeil traded Charle to the Rams to bring Ron Jaworski to Philadelphia.

"Keith Jackson began his career on a track that looked like it would land him among the all-time greats. He caught 81 passes as a rookie and then had 63 in 1989. Still, I looked at him like there could have been more. As good as he was, I kept thinking he could have been better. He had that kind of ability. Buddy Ryan envisioned him as a game-changing player. Keith stepped right in and had an impact immediately. He and Young were very similar – a lot of confidence and the ability to match.

"Keith wasn't much of a blocker, but he didn't have to block much. He was so graceful down the field and could beat any linebacker in space. When he caught 81 passes as a rookie, I thought that would be the standard for him. He and Randall Cunningham had such a rapport and I thought Keith would continue to put up those kinds of numbers. In that sense, it was disappointing that the numbers declined.

"Chad Lewis, of course, was a crafty player who had great hands and who made himself into a Pro Bowl tight end. John Spagnola had a couple of really terrific years for the Eagles in the mid-1980s and had two seasons with 60-plus catches. Krepfle didn't have huge receiving numbers, but he was a very good player who did a lot of the dirty things that you didn't notice. He was a good blocker."