Last month, former NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham suddenly decided to step down as the Raiders team chaplain. He didn’t elaborate on his decision at the time.
During an interview with Chris Tomasson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Cunningham finally opened up on why he had to step down. Cunningham felt like he wasn’t needed by the new regime in Las Vegas as the franchise hired Josh McDaniels as their head coach and David Ziegler as their general manager.
“I kept calling and calling and calling, trying to contact the right officials to get the OK on what the direction was with Coach McDaniels, but it just went by, and finally I said, ‘I don’t think I’m needed here anymore,’” Cunningham told Tomasson. “He texted me one time and he said, ‘I’m looking forward to you and your involvement here. And I said, ‘Feel free to call anytime.’ And I never received a call back. And I just figured that was kind of like a sign for me it is time for me to move on.”
Cunningham added that the team chaplain is supposed to help out the current players on the roster.
“The players really need someone who is going to be like a brother, a father figure. Someone they can lean on and talk to outside of the organization, and that’s what we had in Minnesota,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham had been hired by former Raiders coach Jon Gruden, who abruptly resigned last last year after someone leaked the media grossly inappropriate emails he sent to former Washington executive Bruce Allen in 2011.
