QB? WR? Patriots Project Rookie as Do-It-All 'Dude!'
New England Patriots fans and observers are accustomed to watching every move of a quarterback that arrived to the team on the third day of the NFL Draft.
That's right, Malik Cunningham is ready to roll under center.
Cunningham has been one of the more intriguing undrafted free agents in recent New England memory: at $200,000 guaranteed, he inked the most expensive UDFA contract in team history, even with a sense of relative uncertainty surrounding the basic concept of where he'll line up on the field.
In college at Louisville, Cunningham was a quarterback, responsible for 120 total touchdowns in his Cardinals career. But from the minute he arrived in Foxborough, he was getting the Julian Edelman treatment in anticipation of moving him to receiver. Others believe he could make an impact on special teams.
From the get-go, observers believed that the 5-11, 194-pound Cunningham's destiny went beyond his natural passing spot despite throwing for 70 scores and leading the ACC in rushing tallies (21) in 2021.
"I think he's a receiver and the kid said he would do that through the process," an NFC executive told NFL.com Tom Pelissero leading up to the draft.. "(He's) a stud of a kid, I just don't see quarterback out of him."
This week in Patriots camp saw Cunningham make the jaw-dropping move of playing his listed position. Per Zach Cox of NESN, Cunningham struggled with his accuracy but completed 4-of-6 passes with the help of acrobatics from his new teammates. If anything, Cunningham did leave an impression his new position roommates.
“He’s very athletic,” Mac Jones said in Cox's report. “He’s a smart kid. He works hard. He doesn’t get a lot of reps, but you can see when he’s in there, he’s a little bit of a playmaker.”
“He’s a dude,” primary backup Bailey Zappe added. “To be able to learn from the receiver aspect and then kind of translate it to quarterback, it actually is probably really good for him to know both of it. It helps him understand the offense as a whole. So to see what he did out there in his reps that he got was pretty cool.”
Despite an offseason of relative controversy, it's no secret that Jones has a stranglehold on the primary passing job. Aerial intrigue, however, could linger in the form of Cunningham, who could be one of the late entries to watch Thursday's preseason opener against the Houston Texans (7 p.m. ET, WBZ).
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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