I was doing some research today and stumbled across this NYT article from the summer of 1995. It is all about Randall Cunningham, new coaches and a new offense.
All I can say is…wow.
I could put up nuggets from it, but go read the whole thing.
Tell me if much of the article doesn’t feel like it was written 2 weeks ago, but with a couple of name changes. Let’s sure hope for a better outcome this time around.
Wow that’s terrifying. I teared up a bit having to relive the departure of Keith Jackson and Keith Byars. I loved watching those 3 play together.
Certainly some eerie similarities, but I think you just equated Andy Reid with Rich Kotite! Re-reading about the QB changing the play calls and getting benched for it puts last year in perspective. Then again, maybe it was a D-Line coach improvising on the fly instead. hmmmm.
Randall was a bad fit for the WCO. If Brian Billick had been his OC for his career, he would be in the Hall of Fame.
Overstating things with RC and Billick. The Vikings offense was good before Randall with Brad Johnson as QB. Jeff George and Daunte Culpepper both were Top 5 in Yds/Pts the 2 years after RC left. That offense was a machine due to the great talent, not the QB play.
Billick’s system was a better fit for Cunningham. Buddy never had a power running game to keep the defense honest and give the QB time to make downfield throws. His long release was not suited to the Gruden WCO requiring quick slants and quick reads. Randall would have bee a Hall of Famer if he had played in the right system (or if Buddy Ryan had known how to put together an offensive line.) Randall was better than his career situation allowed him to be.
I always enjoy reading the retro articles, its always fun going back in time. Thanks Tommy
Yep… lots of parallels there.