The New Orleans Saints couldn’t pay Randall Cunningham enough to play for Mike Ditka, so after sitting on the bench for Dennis Green all season, he finds himself in the playoff spotlight.
The Minnesota Vikings paid Cunningham $425,000 plus incentives to come out of a year of retirement and back up Brad Johnson.
“We offered him more than that and he said he would rather be a backup in Minnesota than start for us,” Saints’ General Manager Bill Kuharich said Monday. “I still haven’t figured that out.”
The Saints pursued Cunningham before trading for Heath Shuler, who became Ditka’s first starter in a season of quarterback shuffles.
“He was going to be the guy instead of Shuler. After Cunningham turned us down, the talk for Shuler heated up,” Kuharich said.
Ditka jumped from Shuler to rookie Danny Wuerffel to journeyman Doug Nussmeier to castoff Billy Joe Hobert after releasing veteran Jim Everett in the off-season.
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Cunningham had been paid $3.2 million in his final season with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1995. Benched after four games in favor of Rodney Peete, Cunningham wore out his welcome when he skipped a week of practice for his son’s birth and wound up having to play the final three quarters of the Eagles’ playoff loss at Dallas, Jan. 7, 1996, when Peete got hurt. Cunningham retired to Las Vegas and started a marble and granite business. He did commentary for TNT on NFL games and nobody called to coax him back.
Cunningham said he underwent a spiritual renewal that humbled him.
“For eight years, I couldn’t do anything wrong. Then those last couple years I got to the point where I had overstayed my welcome,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham alienated teammates with an aloof attitude, but in leading the Vikings to 10 points in the final 90 seconds to beat the Giants Saturday, he found old Eagles’ teammate Cris Carter on a key 21-yard pass even though Carter had altered his route.
“He didn’t just hurt us with his pure skills,” Giants’ linebacker Corey Miller said. “He definitely is more poised and showed his leadership. It enabled him to come back after having a terrible first half to make some big throws. That’s what you need a veteran for. If he had been a younger guy, it would have been much different. He made plays while we lost our poise and that was the difference.”
Cunningham sat until Dec. 7, when he started against this week’s playoff opponent, the 49ers, after Johnson underwent surgery to repair bulging disks in his neck.
Of the eight quarterbacks left in the playoffs, Cunningham, 34, has more experience that Pittsburgh’s Kordell Stewart, Tampa Bay’s Trent Dilfer, or Kansas City’s Elvis Grbac. The other four have been to Super Bowls–Denver’s John Elway, New England’s Drew Bledsoe, San Francisco’s Steve Young and Green Bay’s Brett Favre.
Bay of Bigs: If Tampa Bay’s Michael Husted opens the scoring Sunday against Green Bay with a field goal of 20-something yards, Packer fans should breathe a sigh of relief and start celebrating.
In the previous two Packer victories over the Bucs, Husted booted field goals of 24 and 23 yards in the respective first quarters. Although both games were close, with the Pack winning 21-16 and 17-6, the 3-0 leads were the only times the Bucs were ahead.
Both times the Bucs figured they blew big chances. In Lambeau Field, Packers’ defensive end Gabe Wilkins intercepted a Trent Dilfer pass and hurdled Dilfer on the way to a 77-yard touchdown return. In Tampa, Bucs’ fullback Mike Alstott fumbled to set up the Packers’ first touchdown, rookie receiver Reidel Anthony dropped a sure touchdown pass with the Packers leading 7-6 in the first half, and Dilfer was hobbled by an ankle sprain in the second half.
“Maybe we’ll play them again and I’ll definitely think when the kickoff starts we’ll beat them,” coach Tony Dungy said. “I’m not going to say we’re better than Green Bay even though they’ve beaten us four times in a row now. You’d look at me like I was some kind of nut. That doesn’t mean the next time we play we don’t feel we can beat them.”
Packers’ safety LeRoy Butler praised the Bucs, saying: “I think they’re the second-best team in the NFL. I think they’re better than San Francisco, better than the Vikings and better than the Lions.”
So far, the Bucs have proved Butler right on one count.
Give them something new: Not only did division races fizzle down the stretch this season, the playoffs are causing double takes. All four divisional matchups this weekend already have been played during the season, three within the last month.
The Steelers beat the Patriots in New England two weeks ago and have won five of six games in the ’90s, although the Patriots ousted the Steelers in Foxboro in last year’s divisional match.
The Packers swept the Bucs, winning the NFC Central in Tampa on Dec. 7 in the Packers’ last meaningful game.
The Broncos and Chiefs split home and home, as they usually do.
The 49ers handled the Vikings four weeks ago in San Francisco.
So what’s new about the postseason?
Johnson ‘fesses up: A day after criticizing his offensive coaching staff for the Dolphins’ failure to run and failure to mask audible signals, Miami coach Jimmy Johnson admitted the obvious: It was the head coach’s fault.
“I screwed up,” Johnson said, reviewing his team’s 17-3 loss to the New England. “I went with the system the way it was even though I was uncomfortable with it. I should have stepped in on day one but I didn’t think it was the right thing to do. The system doesn’t fit what I want to do.”
Offensive coordinator Gary Stevens and quarterback Dan Marino have operated the same pass-oriented system for eight years, six before Johnson arrived.
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Injury updates: San Francisco coach Steve Mariucci declared running back Garrison Hearst out of Sunday’s game against Minnesota. Hearst has a broken left collarbone. The 49ers still hope to have Hearst for the NFC championship game, should they advance. . . . Denver running back Terrell Davis, who suffered bruised ribs in the victory Saturday over Jacksonville, said he would play Sunday at Kansas City. “I’m breathing better,” he said Monday. “I can laugh and cough. I like the progress I’m making. I’m going to play, regardless. This is it.” . . . The Patriots list running back Curtis Martin as questionable for Saturday’s game at Pittsburgh with a groin injury. He has missed the last four games, initially with a separated shoulder.