Randall Cunningham, Jalen Reagor & Super Bowl LII: Eagles, Vikings have connections

The week after the Eagles hired little-known Green Bay quarterbacks coach Andy Reid, in January 1999, the most talented quarterback in team history was trying to make history in Minnesota.

Randall Cunningham came inches away from cementing the legacy of Buddy Ryan as the Eagles’ most underachieving coach ever. Cunningham was the Ultimate Weapon with the Eagles, but by 1999 he was a 35-year-old, un-retired backup for Brad Johnson. He’d taken over the in Week 2 of the 1998 season when Johnson broke his foot.

He’d gone 13-1 as the starter. He’d won a playoff game. In a deafening Metrodome — you couldn’t hear the man beside you if he hollered — Cunningham had led the Vikings to a 27-20 lead over the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC championship game. With just over two minutes to play, he’d set up Gary Anderson with a 38-yard field goal that would ice the win. Anderson was then the all-time field-goal leader in NFL history, and he hadn’t missed any of his 39 field goals in that 1998 season.

Anderson missed this one. Hooked it half a foot to the left. The Vikings wound up losing, 30-27, in overtime.

Anderson was a former Eagle, too. He’d made 59 field goals in 1995 and 1996 for the Eagles. He’d been teammates in Philadelphia with Cunningham in 1995, the season before Cunningham’s one-season retirement. Cunningham returned to the NFL with Minnesota in 1997, which was the second season in a row that Reggie White, perhaps the greatest defender in NFL history, led assistant coach Reid’s Packers to the Super Bowl.

Cunningham and White were teammates in Philadelphia for eight seasons, from 1985-92, the last seven under Ryan. They had teammates nearly as illustrious as them. Incredibly, they never won a playoff game.

When the Eagles host the Vikings for their home opener on Monday Night Football, the Cunningham connection will be just one of many over the last 25 years that tie the teams, and the towns, together.

If Cunningham wasn’t the Eagles’ most talented long-term QB, then Donovan McNabb certainly was. But the Eagles are excellent at anticipating expiration dates, and they traded McNabb to Washington in 2010. He struggled there, but the Vikings were desperate enough to sign McNabb for 2011. Six games into the season Vikings coach Leslie Frazier, a former Eagles assistant during McNabb’s prime, benched McNabb amid reports that McNabb had a poor work ethic. McNabb denied the reports, but he never played again.

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It was a bitter pill for McNabb to swallow in Minneapolis, since McNabb beat the Vikings twice in the Eagles’ first game of the playoffs after the 2004 and 2008 seasons. McNabb compiled the highest passer rating of his 16 playoff games in the 2004 win, 111.4, on the way to Super Bowl XXXIX.

Just before free agency began in 2016, the Eagles signed quarterback Sam Bradford to a two-year, $36 million extension. About two weeks later they signed free-agent backup Chase Daniel to a three-year, $21 million contract. Then, a month later, they traded up and drafted Carson Wentz with the No. 2 overall pick.

Wentz was never supposed to take a snap as a rookie. Unpolished and untested — he came from North Dakota State — he was supposed to be the No. 3 quarterback.

However, in a preseason practice Aug. 30, Vikings starter Teddy Bridgewater dislocated his knee and tore his ACL. The Vikings were defending NFC North champions, Super Bowl contenders that year, and, suddenly, desperate for an accomplished veteran quarterback.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Wentz had progressed rapidly. The Eagles were rebuilding, anyway; they had just fired Chip Kelly, hired rookie head coach Doug Pederson, and expected 2016 to be a rebuilding year. So, they traded Bradford to Minnesota and recouped some of the assets they spent drafting Wentz.

Wentz leapfrogged Daniel and started. He went 7-9 as a rookie and landed in the Pro Bowl after 2017.

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A swirl of story lines came out of the Vikings’ visit to Lincoln Financial Field for the NFC title game on Jan. 21, 2018.

Would the Vikings’ top-ranked defense, designed by head coach Mike Zimmer, stymie backup quarterback Nick Foles’ storybook run to a Super Bowl? No. The Eagles rolled, 38-7, in Foles’ finest playoff game; his 141.4 passer rating was some 35 points better than his Super Bowl MVP performance two weeks later.

Would Philadelphians be welcoming to the “Minnesota-nice” Vikings fans? No. Eagles fans acted so badly around the city and inside the stadium that, after the game, a cascade of donations and apologies flooded into the Mike Zimmer Foundation.

However, perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon lay in the fans’ bizarre preparation. The Eagles entered their second playoff game as top-seeded home underdogs for the second straight week. Spurred by the example of Lane Johnson and Chris Long, who donned German shepherd masks after upsetting the Falcons in the divisional round, Eagles fans bought every dog mask on the market. Amazon sold out.

Foles shined in the game, but the most memorable play was Patrick Robinson’s 50-yard interception return for a touchdown that tied the score at 7 in the first quarter.

After the Eagles won the Super Bowl, center Jason Kelce’s notorious speech on the Art Museum melded the underdog masks and a quote on the wall of offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland: “Hungry Dogs Run Faster.”

Notably, Kelce did not wear a dog mask for the parade. He wore a Mummer’s costume.

The most glorious moment in Eagles history happened in the bigger Twin City. The Eagles got a dream performance from Foles, who threw for 373 yards, a career playoff high. But all those yards were less memorable than his 1-yard catch. Foles was the keystone to the “Philly Special,” a fourth-down, goal-line trick play that gave the Birds a TD just before halftime.

The Philly faithful delighted that Foles’ opposite, New England’s Tom Brady, dropped a trick-play pass in the same game.

The game provided the Eagles revenge for a loss in Super Bowl XXXIX to Brady and Bill Belichick — a game that occurred at the height of the Patriots’ SpyGate scandal, in which they were found to be taping opponents’ sidelines. Defensive end Brandon Graham earned a permanent place in Eagles history when he strip-sacked Brady late in the fourth quarter to help seal the win in 2018.

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Super Bowl LII was played on the coldest day in Super Bowl history, but the game was played indoors, and it will forever warm the hearts of Philadelphians.

A week after the Super Bowl win, the Vikings hired Wentz’s quarterbacks coach, John DeFilippo, to be their offensive coordinator after Vikings OC Pat Shurmur took the head coaching job with the Giants. The timing was horrible for the Eagles.

After DeFilippo agreed to take the job in Minneapolis, Patriots OC Josh McDaniels backed out of the head coaching job in Indianapolis. That created an opening for Eagles OC Frank Reich, who became the Colts’ coach. That left an opening at offensive coordinator in Philadelphia. It was an opening that DeFilippo almost surely would have filled had he not already been headed to Minnesota.

Instead, Doug Pederson promoted receivers coach Mike Groh.

DeFilippo, an unrelenting taskmaster and a no-nonsense leader, was credited with Wentz’s rapid progress.

Wentz largely ignored Groh, who was fired after the 2019 season. Wentz regressed on the field, became unmanageable off the field, and ultimately demanded a trade after the 2020 season.

The Eagles shocked the football world at the 2020 draft when they took raw Texas Christian receiver Jalen Reagor at No. 21 and let accomplished LSU receiver Justin Jefferson fall to Minnesota at No. 22. The Vikings’ brass actually laughed, with disbelief and delight, when commissioner Roger Goodell called Reagor’s name.

It was a monumental mistake.

Jefferson has been, arguably, the best young receiver in the history of the NFL. That’s heady praise, considering he plays for the franchise that also drafted Randy Moss.

Reagor, comparatively, has been a bust. After two seasons with the Eagles, a team with scant receiver talent, Reagor had 64 catches for 695 yards and three touchdowns, plus one catch for 2 yards in last year’s playoff game. Just before this season began, the Eagles cut bait and traded him to a team that needed a punt returner.

That team was the Minnesota Vikings, who visit Monday night.

Welcome back, Jalen.

Inquirer Eagles beat reporters EJ Smith and Josh Tolentino preview the team’s Week 2 game against the Minnesota Vikings. Watch at Inquirer.com/EaglesGameday