Randall Cunningham

OPPOSING PLAYERS used to come into Veterans Stadium, hear how the crowd would boo the home team and ask quarterback Randall Cunningham: "How do you guys do it?" And Cunningham would reply with a chuckle: "Those are our fans. We love them. " No one is better equipped to appreciate what quarterback Donovan McNabb has endured during his 10-year career with the Eagles. Cunningham played in the same spotlight for 11 years, during which he experienced the same sweet-and-sour relationship.

Randall. That name alone is enough to guarantee that the punchless, pathetic 1991 Eagles offense won't be the same this season. With Randall Cunningham at the helm, the Eagles ranked third in the NFL in total yards in 1990. Without him last season, they dropped to 25th, and had a four-game free fall at midseason in which they failed to score a touchdown. "I never had such injuries on one side of the ball," said Eagles coach Rich Kotite. "We went through five quarterbacks, a total of maybe five or six other offensive players out. Very rarely did we have both of our wide receivers together.

After he scrambled to Keith Jackson's locker early yesterday afternoon to find a suitable interview cap - a white hat with "Detroit Lions" stitched on the front panel - Randall Cunningham hustled back to his stall, pivoted before a group of reporters and made a request: "Please," the Eagles quarterback said with a smile, "no negative questions. " Cunningham is enjoying Monday afternoon interviews these days. He is upbeat about the team's four-game winning streak, and about the way he is playing football.

Randall wants to be Rodney. Rodney wants to be Randall. Ray would probably like Randall to read and react like Rodney but run like Randall. And you didn't think it would be fun to be an Eagles fan this season. "Sometimes I wonder if I would feel better as a relief pitcher than as a starter," Randall Cunningham mused out loud yesterday. "Being able to see what happens, then coming in the second quarter . . . He smiled for a moment, then reality set in. "But that's not my role," the Eagles quarterback said.

Comebacking quarterback Randall Cunningham entered Eagles voluntary camp eager to see how his body, specifically his left knee, would respond to the daily rigors of an NFL camp again. After taking hundreds of snaps, throws and drops in his first full week of drills since the September 1991 knee surgery that sidelined him last season, Cunningham paused yesterday to say "it's all systems go" as training camp approaches. The knee-braced Eagle, who tore knee ligaments when he was hit in the opening game of last season, gave a small group of inquiring fans outside the practice field fence a "thumbs-up" signal as he headed to his car. As expected, Cunningham has been somewhat inconsistent throwing the ball, but expressed happiness with his movement and leg strength after the first week of workouts on the comeback trail.

This Great Quarterback Controversy is getting even weirder. Randall Cunningham, who for the last week was alternately bitter and blase about being benched yesterday, now has a new idea. He thinks Jim McMahon should start again next week. And he said this after coach Rich Kotite had repeated for the umpteenth time that Cunningham would start Sunday against Green Bay. Of course, he also said it after McMahon had led the Eagles to a 31-10 victory over the Los Angeles Raiders.

Randall Cunningham is hot. Very hot. Not just football hot, but marketing hot. Media hot. Superstar hot. It is hard to say just when it happened, but at some point in the last year the Eagles' dashing, young quarterback crossed over the line between football player and folk hero. Now Cunningham is doing what all good folk heroes do in the '80s: He is cashing in. He is doing commercials. He is selling his face on posters and T-shirts. He is hosting TV and radio shows.

When he was with the Eagles, Buddy Ryan was at his civilized, non-arrogant best after a tough loss. On those occasions he even ventured the notion that he might not know everything and that just maybe he wasn't the greatest football coach of all time. Well, Ryan had his humility renewed again yesterday at Veterans Stadium. The swagger and bluster went out of Ryan when the Cardinals, whom he now serves as head coach, competed pitifully and almost pointlessly in a penalty- slathered, 17-7 loss to the Eagles.

A couple of lounge chairs and a sofa at Eagles training camp. Randall Cunningham. A handful of football writers. Tape recorders. Notebooks. Microphones. Cunningham, the superstar, multimillion-dollar quarterback of the Eagles, is returning from a season in the wilderness. Injured in the first game of the 1991 season, this amazingly gifted athlete is back to help rescue an offense that dropped, without him, from the heights of NFL excellence to, well, the pits. By all outward appearances, it's an ordinary event.

The NFL's premier quarterback. If Randall Cunningham didn't earn that title a year ago, with a succession of outstanding performances that took the Eagles to their first division title since 1980, one suspects that the ranch safely may be wagered on the prospect in 1989. Indeed, it is highly probable that Cunningham, 26, who accounted for more than 75 percent of the Eagles' offensive yardage and 71.4 percent of the offensive touchdowns last season, will be an even better quarterback in his third full season as a starter.

The Eagles announced that Randall Cunningham will serve as the team's honorary alumni captain Sunday against Arizona. There will be a tribute to the former Pro Bowl quarterback at halftime on the Miller Lite Flight Deck. One of the most electrifying players in NFL history, Cunningham spent 11 seasons in Philadelphia (1985-95), earning three trips to the Pro Bowl as an Eagle and compiling a 63-43-1 record. He ranks third in team history in many of the major passing categories, including attempts (3,362)

Eagles quarterback Michael Vick became the NFL's career leading rusher for quarterbacks on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills. Vick passed Randall Cunningham with a 53-yard scramble to the right in the third quarter that gave him 4,946 yards rushing, surpassing Cunningham's mark of 4,928 yards. Coming into the game, Vick had rushed for 228 yards on 32 carries. He became the first player in history to throw for more than 400 yards and run for 75 yards in the same game last week against San Francisco.

THE MICHAEL VICK/Randall Cunningham conversation is unavoidable for anyone who has lived through both experiences. You understand that completely if you can remember the day when the 1989 Sports Illustrated NFL preview issue showed up in your mailbox with that cover of Cunningham leaping as he prepared to throw, the headline proclaiming him to be "The Ultimate Weapon. " They are first and second now in all-time NFL rushing yards by quarterbacks, Cunningham followed by Vick.

Yes, this sounds familiar. The contract extension of a high-profile quarterback being announced as the Eagles and Redskins were getting ready to get it on. Yesterday, it was Donovan McNabb, of the Redskins , getting 5 years and $78 million, with $40 million guaranteed. Twenty-one years ago, it was Randall Cunningham. It was Sept. 17, 1989, and a newly wealthy Cunningham and the Eagles defeated Washington, 42-37, overcoming a 20-0 deficit in the process. Cunningham passed for a team-record 447 yards and completed a team-record 34 passes.

FAMILY COMES first at Remnant Ministries, the Las Vegas church where former Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham serves as pastor. "The family unit is the most important unit in the universe," the church's Web site states. "Healthy families are the closest thing to heaven on earth. " Cunningham's universe was shattered late Tuesday afternoon when his youngest son accidentally drowned in the family's back-yard hot tub - the same tub in which Cunningham, an ordained minister, reportedly performs baptisms.

LAS VEGAS - Authorities say the 2-year-old son of former Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham is dead after apparently drowning in a backyard hot tub. Las Vegas police Lt. Dennis Flynn says it appeared to have been an accident. He says a woman at the house with several other children found the boy about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday and began trying to resuscitate him. The child was pronounced dead at St. Rose Dominican Hospital Siena campus in Henderson. Cunningham starred at UNLV and played for 16 years in the NFL, mostly for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Always, it seems, the past collides with the present. It did so yesterday when, perhaps, the greatest Wildcatter of all time shared a stadium with his legacy. Randall Cunningham and Al Wistert were inducted into the Eagles Honor Roll. Without question, Wistert, 88, an all-time Hall of Fame snub-ee, was the more deserving, what with eight All-Pro honors as a two-way tackle on the 1948 and 1949 NFL championship teams. Without question, Cunningham, a three-time Pro Bowl selection, was more relevant yesterday.

OPPOSING PLAYERS used to come into Veterans Stadium, hear how the crowd would boo the home team and ask quarterback Randall Cunningham: "How do you guys do it?" And Cunningham would reply with a chuckle: "Those are our fans. We love them. " No one is better equipped to appreciate what quarterback Donovan McNabb has endured during his 10-year career with the Eagles. Cunningham played in the same spotlight for 11 years, during which he experienced the same sweet-and-sour relationship.

There's an opinion out there, and it might even be the prevailing one, that Donovan McNabb's days in Philadelphia are coming to an end. It's been circulating on the radio air waves and the fan message boards ever since the team used a second-round pick on quarterback Kevin Kolb in the 2007 draft. The discussion didn't go away last season when the team stumbled out of the starting gate and McNabb suffered another injury, albeit a relatively minor one, that prevented him from playing 16 games.