Where Eagles Care

The words Pelted Randall Cunningham like so many hailstones, but he just sat there and listened. It was early April, three months after the Philadelphia Eagles had ended a third straight season with a first-game playoff loss, and the players were gathered in a Veterans Stadium meeting room, presumably to heal wounds left from the 1990 postseason. But Cunningham, the Eagles' quarterback, was being cut apart by his teammates all over again.

Cunningham knew of the players' anger because in the previous weeks the local papers had been full of anonymous quotes from teammates. He had been instrumental in getting coach Buddy Ryan fired with his nonsupportive comments after the crushing 20-6 playoff loss to the Washington Redskins, teammates said. He had been a selfish player throughout the season, teammates said. And he had isolated himself in his $1.4 million mansion with the quarter-million-dollar backyard, in Moorestown, N.J., not sharing his good fortune with the guys he sweat and bled with, teammates said.

When it came his turn to talk at the April meeting, Cunningham's lip quivered. "I love every one of the guys in this room," he said. "I don't think I have an ego problem. There's nothing more important to me in the world than football."

That was the last day of bloodletting for the Eagles. While everything wasn't coming up roses last week as they completed a voluntary minicamp in preparation for Monday's opening of coach Rich Kotite's first training camp, the Eagles at least appeared to be less divided than they were six months ago. "A lot of mending has been done," says linebacker Seth Joyner, who in February described the team as having been torn limb from limb. "But has the surgery been successful? We'll have to wait and see. If we win 10, 11 games, and we win a playoff game or two, then you can say the surgery worked."

Entering the 1990 playoffs, only three NFL teams had won more regular-season games over the previous three years than the 31 that Philadelphia had won, and Cunningham was coming off an MVP-caliber season. However, late in the third quarter of the Washington game, with the Eagles trailing 13-6, Ryan pulled an ineffective Cunningham for one series and inserted Jim McMahon, who had thrown only nine passes all season. McMahon made three feeble pass attempts, and a shaken Cunningham returned to the game on Philly's next possession. But he failed to rally his team.

Afterward, Cunningham said the benching insulted him, and when writers asked if he wanted to see the embattled Ryan return as the Eagles' coach, he said, "Of course. Buddy's a good coach." Then, without being prompted, Cunningham added, "I mean, Kotite's a great coach."

Now, understand that this was a vehemently pro-Buddy team, and a segment of players already thought Cunningham was too full of himself. Three days later, Philadelphia owner Norman Braman fired Ryan and replaced him with offensive coordinator Kotite. So the resentment among the players boiled over, until defensive captain Reggie White, who was among the players most upset by Ryan's firing and who held Cunningham partially accountable for it, scheduled that April meeting during minicamp.

Here's how the Cunningham-related resentment has played out:

?On the coaching change: "It's so farfetched [to believe that] Randall had anything to do with it," Braman said last week. "Right after the Washington game, I'd decided we had to make a change. And [Eagle president] Harry Gamble told me to think about it, to make sure it was what I wanted to do."

Cunningham claims his postgame remark was merely an attempt to emphasize his respect for Kotite, and he did go on to say that the Eagles were better off with Ryan and Kotite together. The defensive players seem to have taken to Kotite and new defensive coordinator Bud Carson. One day last week, White lay down after completing five of eight scheduled wind sprints. Ryan might have let him lie there. Kotite went over, gave him a playful kick, and White, chuckling, got up and ran the last three sprints.