Once Again, Youth Is Served, as Cunningham Bests Plunkett

It was a classic quarterback duel that was won, fittingly, with a quarterback sneak.

Randall Cunningham, 23, of the Philadelphia Eagles used his one-yard run to beat the Raiders’ Jim Plunkett, 39, in a 33-27 overtime game that matched the two of them for more than four quarters Sunday at the Coliseum in a battle of bombs and sacks and a wide variety of other plays.

Cunningham is a second-year pro and Plunkett a 16-yard veteran, but both played as if they had been in the league about eight years and were just this moment reaching their peak.

In the third quarter, for example, Plunkett laid out two long passes--both perfectly thrown--to the same man, wide receiver Jessie Hester, on the 49-yard and 81-yard plays that put the Raiders in front, 24-17.

Cunningham, however, surprised one of the league’s finest defensive teams with three touchdown passes for the Eagles. Each was delivered to one of football’s most underrated wide receivers, Mike Quick, on three entirely different kinds of plays that measured 62, 5 and 10 yards.

Buddy Ryan, the new coach of the Eagles, said that Quick’s 10-yard touchdown--which came on Cunningham’s fourth straight rollout pass and fourth straight completion of the fourth quarter--was the play of the game.

“Randall has the wheels to get out there (away from the Raider rush) and the arm to get the ball past (Raider cornerback Lester) Hayes,” Ryan said.

Actually, Hayes defensed it as well as any cornerback could.

“That was about my fifth read,” Cunningham said. “First I looked for Z (the tight end), then Y, (the other wide receiver) and then the fullback. But Mike was still running, so I threw it to him.”

In a game of big plays, that one was Ryan’s nomination for the biggest because the Raiders, although they could catch up eventually, could never thereafter take the lead.

“This was the greatest win of the (Ryan) era,” said Ryan, who had previously coached the Eagles over the Rams, 34-20, to take permanent possession of Los Angeles, at least for this year.

It was a game that the Raiders probably could have won if they hadn’t dropped a couple of touchdown passes in the second quarter.

Or they could have won it, probably, with a field goal either then--when the Eagles held them with a defensive stand at the Philadelphia five-yard line--or in overtime, when they advanced to the Philadelphia 20 two plays before Marcus Allen’s fumble.

They could have even won it with 27 seconds left in regulation when Dokie Williams made a diving catch in the end zone. The officials didn’t think it was a legal catch.

And they should have won, no doubt, from a quarterback as inexperienced as Cunningham. But Cunningham doesn’t worry about the things he hasn’t learned yet in pro ball.

“Even a genius has a lot to learn no matter how smart he is,” Cunningham said.

On an afternoon of 664 passing yards and 16 sacks--10 by the Raiders, 6 by the Eagles--Cunningham connected on 22 of 39 throws for 298 yards against Plunkett’s 16 of 42 for 366.

The five big overhead touchdowns:

--Plunkett to Hester, 49 yards. Because Eagle cornerback Evan Cooper was step for step with Hester on a fly pattern, Plunkett had to launch a perfect high-arc bomb that reached the Raider receiver at the goal line.

Said Ryan: “We had it well covered, but 16 (Plunkett) put it on a dime.”

--Plunkett to Hester, 81 yards. When Allen lined up as a wide receiver, Hester, sprinting downfield inside of him, was covered by an Eagle linebacker who was left far to the rear.

Ryan: “It was a busted coverage. Our corner on the other side didn’t hear the (defensive) call.”

--Cunningham to Quick, 62 yards. Quick made the move of the game at the line of scrimmage, double-juking Hayes, who lined up to bump him but never touched him when Quick darted outside. Then the Eagle wide receiver outran the Raider corner to get Cunningham’s long, ideally thrown pass.

Said Cunningham: “We felt we had to make one of those to beat this team.”

--Cunningham to Quick, 5 yards. Rolling right, Cunningham threw back to his left to hit Quick running an end-zone slant pattern in front of Raider cornerback Mike Haynes. The instant Cunningham looked at him, Quick broke inside. Thus Haynes never had a chance to get a hand on Cunningham’s nifty fall-away pass.

Ryan: “No. 82 (Quick) was Randall’s second read. We wanted to go the way he was rolling.”

--Cunningham to Quick, 10 yards. As Quick ran a square-out pattern in the end zone, Hayes seemed to be precisely where he belonged, but Cunningham threw the ball slightly behind him, perhaps deliberately, and Quick adjusted.

Said Cunningham: “Mike makes those plays.”

And, now, so does Cunningham.