PRO FOOTBALL ’95 : Winning Back His Wings : After a Season in the Gutter, Cunningham Has a New Coach and a New Offense With the Eagles

Randall Cunningham is sick and tired of being dissected.

He is beginning his 11th season with the Philadelphia Eagles, and his critics have gone from regarding him as the quarterback of the future to the league’s most overrated signal caller.

“You can’t imagine what I’ve been through in Philly,” Cunningham said. “I’ve been dogged here so much the last few years, it’s unbelievable. There’s just so much negative stuff written here. I can’t let stuff like that get me down. It’s time to be positive.”

The Eagles went 4-0 this summer under new Coach Ray Rhodes for their first undefeated exhibition season in 34 years, but Cunningham is still under fire.

Philadelphia newspapers daily question whether he can handle Rhodes’ San Francisco 49er-style short-passing offense, and last week, Cunningham refused to be interviewed by ESPN for a controversial quarterback profile.

“We have a new coach, new players and a new offense,” Cunningham said. “It’s going to take time for everything to come together.”

Under Rhodes and new offensive coordinator Jon Gruden, the Eagles have switched to the popular “West Coast” offense, which requires quarterbacks to make quick reads and throw short passes. Quarterbacks from Steve Young to Brett Favre have learned it and excelled, but even they needed more than a training camp to get it down.

Cunningham’s detractors say he is a poor leader, not disciplined enough to allow Rhodes’ offense to work and that his quarterback decisions have never been his strength. They say that even at his best, Cunningham was a running back masquerading as a quarterback, that he looked to gallop out of the pocket whenever his primary receiver was covered.

At 32, and in the last year of a contract that will pay him about $3.2 million, Cunningham acknowledges that he might have lost half a step and that the Eagle offense during the exhibition season did not remind many fans of Young and the 49ers.

“But I feel real good about our situation,” he said. “We may not be where we want to be, but we are getting there. It’s a part of adjusting under this offense. I’m glad that I’m now having the opportunity to be in it.”

Rhodes has supported Cunningham, despite calls from the Philadelphia media to play backup Rodney Peete, who many believed outplayed Cunningham in the exhibitions.

“Randall knows what the situation is, and that is for us to win games,” Rhodes said. “He’s been trying to execute the system. At times, we’ve been trying to tell Randall to be patient and to take the throw. A couple of times he probably could have run with the football and gotten a first down.

“He’s just been so conscious of trying to throw the football to the right guy. Again, there are a lot of things going through his mind. Believe me, when the season starts, hopefully, when he gets those opportunities to run, he’ll take it.”

To run or not to run: That has been the question for Cunningham since he entered the league as Philadelphia’s second-round draft choice from Nevada Las Vegas in 1985.

In his first two seasons, Cunningham was a part-time starter behind veteran Ron Jaworski and specialized in third-down passing plays. But over the next four seasons, Cunningham became the league’s most electrifying player and was named to four consecutive Pro Bowls.

He had his best season in 1990, when he led the NFC with 30 touchdown passes, while passing for 3,466 yards and rushing for 942 more in 118 carries.

So how did Cunningham fall from the NFL’s elite?

Season-ending injuries in 1991 (torn ligaments in his left knee) and 1993 (broken left leg) and two defense-minded coaches--Buddy Ryan and Rich Kotite--greased the skids.

Then his career hit rock bottom last season. The Eagles started 7-2, including a 40-8 rout of the 49ers, then lost their last seven games, the final two with Cunningham benched in favor of Bubby Brister.

“It was the lowest point of my entire career,” said Cunningham, who rushed for a full-season career-low 288 yards and was sacked an NFC-high 43 times. “It felt like I was pushed to the gutter.”

The first thing Rhodes did after being named coach was dispatch Gruden to meet with Cunningham at his Las Vegas home and make him feel wanted.

“The guy has really been through a lot,” Rhodes said. “He’s been criticized in the past, but now we just want to have everything positive.”

While Rhodes has protected Cunningham, he has made changes elsewhere. Twenty-nine of the 53 players who began last season are no longer with the team.

To relieve Cunningham of some of the pressure, the Eagles signed two free-agent running backs--Ricky Watters from San Francisco and Kevin Turner from New England. They also brought in Kelvin Martin to return kicks and complement wide receivers Fred Barnett and Calvin Williams.

Watters likes what he has seen of Cunningham and the Eagles.

“I’m really shocked to see how good this team is this early,” he said. “I really didn’t expect the coaches to get everyone together like this so soon. The attitude with everyone on the team is real positive, and from what I heard before, that wasn’t always the case here.”

Watters says that Cunningham will excel in the Eagles’ new offense.

“The thing is that he really wants to learn,” Watters said. “He’s not arrogant, nor is he set in his ways. The more time he has learning this system, the better he will be.”

Cunningham is planning on that because he knows this may be his last chance to shake his troubled image. He wants nothing more than to reach the Super Bowl and improve his playoff numbers--1-4 with five interceptions and three touchdown passes.

“It’s not that I haven’t made mistakes. . . . I have,” Cunningham told the Sporting News. “I should have been more of a leader throughout my career, rather than a follower.

“But I always thought the oldest guy on the team should be the leader. So I was always the quiet guy, figuring that if you worked hard and put the time into being as perfect as possible, you’d be accepted. But that wasn’t the case.

“I know that as a quarterback, you need to stand up every now and then. And when the leadership qualities are needed now, I will stand up. I’m not going to put up with any garbage anymore.”