Philly Front Office

Final Voting:

• Boomer Esiason – 31 votes
• Randall Cunningham – 21 votes

I was 5 years old when this award was given, but I can definitively state that Randall was robbed. How do I know? Because I’m an Eagles fan. The numbers back it up too. Remember, this is a regular season award, so Boomer leading the Bengals to a Super Bowl loss means nothing. Let’s take a look…

Team to Team

The 1988 Bengals finished 12-4 and won the tiebreaker with the Bills for the #1 seed in the AFC. The 10-6 Eagles won the NFC East thanks to a season sweep of the NY Giants but lost the head-to-head tiebreaker with San Francisco due to a lesser record against common opponents. That’s silly. The Eagles were obviously a much more handsome team. Apparently, that doesn’t settle disputes the way it should.

The 1988 Eagles made the playoffs for the first time since 1981 with Randall Cunningham leading the team back to respectability. He did this with only one fellow Pro Bowler on offense in Tight End Keith Jackson. Boomer had a bit more of a supporting cast including 5 fellow Pro Bowlers on offense: all time LT Anthony Munoz, WR Eddie Brown, RG Max Montoya, RB James Brooks, and TE Rodney Holman. Rookie 1000 yard rusher Icky Woods certainly helped too. The Defense had 3 more Pro Bowlers themselves to the Eagles 1 (Reggie White).

The Bengals were an offensive juggernaut that year. They led the league in points scored with 448 and total yardage thanks to a dominant rushing attack that finished with over 2700 yards. The Eagles weren’t slouches themselves, finishing 5th in points and 10th in total yards.

I’m not trying to penalize Boomer for having a great team, but he had a ton more help than Cunningham did. The running game he had at his disposal though cannot be ignored. Take away what Randall did with his own legs and the Bengals beat the Eagles by 1500 yards on the ground. That’s nuts. The Eagles offensive line at the time was not the league leading unit it is now and allowed 57 sacks that season. Sure some of them are on Cunningham, but when your comparing Anthony Munoz to 2nd year nobody Matt Darwin, that’s a significant advantage.

The teams played in Week 2 with the Bengals coming out on top 28-24. Boomer led the Bengals to the lead with a TD pass with around 5 minutes to go. Cunningham drove the Eagles down to the Cincy 11 but couldn’t convert a 4th and 2 with 30 seconds to go. Boomer threw for 368 yards and 4 TDs while Randall had 261 yards in the air and 85 more on the ground. It’s possible that the MVP race edge was gained right there. Had the Eagles scored it brings them up to the #2 seed in the NFC and drops the Bengals to the #2 seed in the AFC. The teams would have finished with identical records with the statistical advantage going to Cunningham by a solid margin.

Head to Head

	Passing yards	Rushing Yards	Total TDs	INTs
Boomer Esiason	3572	248	29	14
Randall Cunningham	3808	624	30	16

Just based on numbers, Randall Cunningham had a better season. He WAS the Eagles offense that year. Besides passing, he led the team in rushing, rushing TDs, and accounted for about 80% of the Eagles offense. Boomer had about 2500 yards from his running backs and accounted for about 60% of the team’s offense. They called Randall the “Ultimate Weapon” for a reason. The league had never seen a dual threat ability like him ever before and wouldn’t again until Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick came into the league a decade later.

Verdict

No Philadelphia Eagle has ever won the MVP. They’ve been close a couple times and realistically Jalen should have won the award 3 seasons ago but inexplicably lost all momentum for missing basically meaningless games after getting hurt in Chicago. Should Randall have been the first in 1988? Well, in the name of consistency, let’s prognosticate a little. There is a good chance that the 1988 Bengals repeat themselves in midnight green this year. It is easy to imagine Jalen Hurts leading a full team offensive effort with 2500 yards from his running backs. The voters will find a way not to give him the MVP despite giving it to Boomer in 1988. With that in mind, I don’t want to say Boomer didn’t deserve this one when Jalen Hurts will be fully deserving in 5 months. Now 1990, that’s a different story…