Do You Love Football?! (17 page)

Who are "they"? "They" are the fans, "they" are the media, "they" are the people who have been testing coaches and players in Philly for years. I smiled at Randall.

"Well, bring it on," I said. "We're going to fight through this."

At the time, the fans and media were split on Randall. On one hand he had a devoted following, and on the other he had people who wanted him out of there, people who wanted a change. When you said something positive about Randall in the media you always had people there who were trying to say, "This guy's nuts thinking Randall Cunningham is going to be a positive player for this team."

My mission was to make Randall and the other quarterbacks as good as they could be. I reached back to everything I had ever learned about coaching the position, right down to soaking footballs with water so the quarterbacks could get used to handling a wet ball on snaps, handoffs and throws, because you never know what kind of weather conditions you're going to encounter during a game. I learned that from Walt Harris at Tennessee. We would actually have a big bucket of water on the practice field to dip the balls in during drills.

When they announced the starting offense for the first pre season game that year against Atlanta, Randall was, as usual,

the last guy introduced. It was like Muhammad Ali being introduced for a fight. You had thirty-five or forty thousand fans cheering emotionally. You had twenty-five or thirty thousand fans who didn't want you to win, who were obviously against him.

By end of that game everyone was a Randall Cunningham fan because he completed twelve of fifteen passes and had a thirty-eight-yard run. He looked sharp. We won the game 25-17, and all you read and heard around town was how amazing our offense looked. This was only the preseason, but we might as well have just won the Super Bowl. I was "Boy Wonder" in the newspapers. We finished the preseason 4-0. We scored thirty-five points against New England. Our offense was rolling.

One of the best parts about my Philadelphia experience was that Ray Rhodes trusted me with the offense. He would come into offensive meetings and we would work together on the game plan, but he pretty much put the offense in the hands of the offensive staff. With that responsibility came a whole lot of pressure. Ray was a demanding guy. He expected the offense to have good execution, to be productive and to be balanced. In practice, defensive coordinator Emmitt Thomas and his staff would give us the proper motivation by challenging us in every aspect of offensive football.

Our chances of meeting Ray's expectations improved considerably the day we got Ricky Watters, the prized free-agent acquisition of 1995, from San Francisco. He had joined the 49ers in 1991, a year after I left. Ricky wasn't just a top-notch running back; he was a top notch football player-a complete player. We tried every which way but loose to get him the ball throwing it to him, handing it to him. We just figured that whenever we got the ball in Ricky's hands, good things would happen.

Our first regular season game was at home against Tampa Bay. As I ate breakfast that morning I saw a picture of myself in the paper, right on the front of the sports section, with a headline that said something like, "Boy Wonder and Starship Twelve." If I had any reason to feel good about myself, it was long gone by the end of the day, because we went out there and got our asses kicked 21-6.

That was the score when we had a first down at our own thirty-four-yard line with a little more than three minutes left.

We tried to get the ball to Watters down the middle against their two-deep on a play we called 22 Strike. With Charles Dimry closing in, Ricky short-armed it. After the game Ricky told reporters, "I'm not going to jump up there and get knocked out. For who? For what? There's other days. I'm going to make a lot of plays."

In a matter of hours I went from "Boy Wonder" to "Boy Blunder," Ricky became "Mr. For Who? For What?" and as far as all the media and fans were concerned, Randall couldn't play in our offense. We were all on our way out-after one game.

Driving to work from my home in South Jersey, I'd hand my $2 to the guy in the tollbooth on the Walt Whitman Bridge and I'd hear, "Dumb ass! Bozo!" They didn't have a hard time spotting who I was because there aren't a lot of blond-haired, blue-eyed guys with freckles in Philly. I was getting killed. I felt I had let Ray down. I felt I had let everyone in the Eagles' organization down. I began to think that I should have stayed in Green Bay.

The following week we had to go to Arizona to face the Cardinals, who were coached by none other than Buddy Ryan.

Buddy had taken the job a year earlier, and after going 1-1 against the Eagles he couldn't wait for another crack at his former team. The Cardinals were a bitch on defense, with blitzes from Clearwater Beach to the North Pole. They were going to be coming from everywhere.

We started out playing poorly in that game as well. Randall didn't have any rhythm. The timing of his throws was either late or early. He just wasn't right. We pulled him for Rodney Peete.

Rodney had a great game and we won 31-19. We just connected from the moment he went in there. I'd call the play from the press box, such as "374 Omaha," and boom, he'd make the three-step drop and throw the quick out. He knew where to go against the blitz, throwing to the "hot" receiver, or he'd make an audible to the right play. He played his ass off and we were 1-1. Flying home from that game I had one of the best feelings of my life. It was my first win as an offensive coordinator, the first time as a coach where I felt I had really made a significant contribution to our team's success.

After working from the sideline through the preseason and in our opener I moved up to the press box for our second game.

Actually Ray sentenced me to the box, and that was where I remained for the rest of my time in Philadelphia. When I became a head coach I went back to calling plays myself from the sideline. NFL rules allow only one coach on the sideline to talk to the quarterback on the field through the headset-to-helmet communication system, which means if you're calling plays from the box, you're giving it to another coach, who in turn is repeating it to the quarterback. By the time the quarterback gets the play, it's really second- or thirdhand information, depending on how you look at it. With me being connected directly to the quarterback, I can give Brad Johnson the play quicker, the offense can get in and out of the huddle faster and the tempo is better.

One of my big deals is tempo. I like the presentation. I like the flow of the game. I like the fact that we're always attacking, on offense as well as on defense. Another advantage to my talking directly to the quarterback is that I can give him a heads-up or a reminder about something, kind of coach him up a little bit. I really felt I could help Randall tremendously by giving him the play directly. I felt I knew what he needed because I had been with him all the time during the week. So when I gave him "Blue Right Y Motion 2 Jet Flanker Drive," I could add, "Don't forget the flanker's hot versus blitz. And use a hard count here; they'll jump offside when you're using motion." Or I might say, "Okay, you're in short yardage now, it's third-and-one. Green Right Close 14 Blast. If you don't like what you see, throw it away because I'm going to go for it on fourth down."

Well, we got the crap kicked out of us by the Bucs, and none of those great coaching points was worth a damn. After a while it became "Hey, let's try this . . ." Maybe I wasn't as ready as I thought I was to deal with having our players, coaches and fans-not to mention players from the other team-yelling at me the whole game as I tried to concentrate on calling the plays: "You're a dork! Give me the ball! What the hell are you doing?"

When it was over, Ray said, "You're going up in the box, man." I think he felt there would be less distraction by having me upstairs and Bill Callahan down on the field calling plays together while our receivers coach at the time, Gerald Carr, would relay them to the quarterback. Later on we hired Sean Payton to be our quarterbacks coach and I would send plays down to him on the sideline. I used to kill him. I'd say, "This is Double Wing Right F Short 72 Zebra Bingo Y Corner. Tell him the flanker's hot and don't forget 358 as an audible. Did you tell him? Did you tell him?"

The fact is, you are in a better position to call a game while sitting inside a closed-in booth. It's quiet. It's a better view. You get instant photographs taken right before the snap and right after the snap, from the sideline and end zone, that you can look at between series. It's really more conducive to calling a game if that's your job.

Trying to call the game from the field is hard, but nothing is harder than being hooked up to me on the headset when you're in the press box and I'm on the field because I'm an asshole. I'll call you every name in the book if I'm not getting the right answers to the questions I'm asking, or if the answers aren't coming fast enough. I've been wired and I've listened to myself talking to people, and I'm surprised somebody hasn't taken me out by now. I can't see from down there so when we hand the ball off I'm yelling, "What's the front? What the bleep happened, man? Did we run it at the three technique? Did we run it to the bubble [the uncovered area between the center and the tackle]? Who missed the bleeping block? Was it the right tackle?

Damn it! What do you mean, you don't know? Do you guys know what the hell you're doing?" I'm brutal. I'm horrible.

We went back to Randall the following week against San Diego at home. Although he threw three touchdown passes, we lost 27-21. Even with the touchdowns Randall didn't play very well in that game, either.

As I walked over to practice one day that week I spotted a big white Lincoln Continental parked, its dark windows rolled up. All of a sudden the driver side window rolled down and I heard, "Hey, Jonny!" I looked inside at this smiling face and squinting eyes. It was Dick Vermeil, the legendary former coach of the Eagles. At the time, Dick was broadcasting college games for ABC. I had never met him before, but apparently he had been following what I was doing for the Eagles, and just out of the kindness of his heart he stopped by to console me a little bit over the fact we were struggling. He offered me a ride to practice, and I couldn't say yes fast enough.

Coach Vermeil's message to me was "Don't try so hard.

You're doing a great job. Just don't try so hard. Go home, kiss your kids, kiss your wife. Don't go crazy." I nodded, but all I could think was You're legendary for being Joe Workaholic.

This was a guy who two years after losing the Super Bowl with the Eagles left coaching because of "burnout," then came back fifteen years later with the St. Louis Rams and won the Super Bowl, then retired a second time after the '99 season, only to come back to coach again in 2001 with the Kansas City Chiefs.

But his stopping by that day meant a lot to me. He didn't have to do anything, and he gave me something I needed to hear at the absolute right time.

We would speak on a fairly regular basis after that. Every now and then, after a game he'd leave me a phone message that would say, "Hey, Jon, this is Dick Vermeil. I just wanted to tell you that you had a great balance between the run and the pass.

Your mixture of plays was outstanding. Keep it up." You talk about somebody giving you some juice. Dick helped me tremendously in Philadelphia. To this day he is still one of my gurus, someone I can talk to on the phone at any time for advice. I love that guy.

In week four, Randall got us out to a 17-0 lead at Oakland,

then the Raiders scored forty-eight consecutive points to drill us 48-7. I got together with Ray and we decided to make Rodney Peete the starter for our fifth game, in New Orleans. I called Randall into my office to break the news. To take away the starting quarterback job from someone who had held that position for ten years, who was a dynamic guy you knew could eventually run the offense the way it was supposed to be run, was terrible. It was horrible. It was awful. I felt I had let Randall down, but we were 1-3 and had to get some results. We had to get some better feedback on film that the quarterback was getting a feel for what we were doing. Plus the rest of the players had kind of migrated toward Rodney. They had seen him go into Arizona and play well and win. They were thinking, Why don't we play Rodney?

Rodney Peete had a strong vibe and a lot of charisma. When we announced that he was going to be the starter for our fourth game, against New Orleans, the whole team just swelled up.

Everybody rolled up his fists and started fighting. By God, we ended up winning four in a row. We finished the season 10-6.

We made the playoffs. We beat Detroit 58-37 in a wild-card game before losing in Dallas the following week. And Ray Rhodes was Coach of the Year.

Naturally Randall felt I had betrayed him. "I told you this town would change you," he said. "I told you they'd split us up. I told you!" I thought, Man, you're right.

At the same time I believed Rodney Peete had something we needed, and that was how I addressed the situation to Randall.

"It's not about our relationship," I said. "It's not about trust. It's about the performance. It's about what this team needs now.

We need a spark. We need a guy that can give us different leadership."

I tried to sell that to Randall. Although he didn't take to it very well he was professional about the way he handled being a backup. He listened to what we said in meetings. He stayed into the game plan. He got killed in the media, of course, as people lined up to take their shots at him.

The 1995 season would be Randall's last in Philadelphia, but a couple of years later he signed with Minnesota and really tore it up in 1998. I was happy for him. Even now, whenever I see him at a golf tournament or another function, I feel bad about the way it ended for him in Philly. Probably one of the biggest letdowns of my career was not helping Randall enjoy success in this system.

After the '95 season I met Bruce Allen, a senior assistant with the Raiders, at the Scouting Combine. Bruce told me that Al Davis, the team's owner, wanted to talk with me about becoming the coordinator for the Raiders, who at the time were coached by Mike White and who already had Joe Bugel running their offense. I asked Ray to give the Raiders permission to talk with me-which he did-because if nothing else it would provide the chance for me to meet Al Davis for the first time. "I have to do this," I told Ray. "This is THE guy, a legendary figure in NFL history. I have to meet him."