FOXBORO — A relatively highly-paid offseason addition allowed the Patriots’ defense to prepare for one of the most dangerous players in their Week 1 slate slightly early this summer.
Quarterback/wide receiver Malik Cunningham, who earned a team-record $200,000 in total guarantees as part of his rookie free-agent contract, was taking reps under center against the Patriots’ starting defense as far back as Aug. 13.
In those snaps, the Patriots were primarily calling designed runs — read option and otherwise — with Cunningham under center. One theory for why Cunningham, who’s now on the practice squad, was seeing those reps was to prepare the defense for when the Patriots played quarterback Jalen Hurts and the Eagles in the season opener on Sunday.
Head coach Bill Belichick didn’t want to get too carried away with the value of Cunningham showing the Patriots looks similar to the ones Hurts might give them, however.
“Yeah, I mean Malik’s got some good skills,” Belichick said. “I think it would be a stretch to compare Malik Cunningham to Jalen Hurts now. I mean, we’re talking about a guy who was second in MVP voting last year, or whatever he was. Athletically, there’s some similarities, but you’re talking about arguably the best player in the league, or one of the top two or three best players in the league. Nobody has anybody that can be him, and if they do, that guy’s probably not playing on the scout team for that team anyway. I mean, it is what it is. We go through that every week.
“Every team’s got a few good players, and some great players, and it’s hard to replicate those players. If you have one, your guy’s probably not on the scout team doing that for that guy anyway. You do the best you can. We’ll have somebody to try to simulate the best we can what Hurts does, but we don’t have anybody like Hurts, and probably, neither does anybody else.”
Still, it does help to face off against a player in practice who can run and has experience playing quarterback. And that’s what Cunningham, a quarterback his entire life before coming to the Patriots’ OTAs and converting to wide receiver, can offer over a player like, say, defensive back Myles Bryant, who imitated then-Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson in practice ahead of a 2020 matchup in Seattle.
And clearly, if Cunningham was as talented as Hurts, he wouldn’t have been an undrafted free agent or assisting the team from the practice squad. But he did show some special ability carrying the ball at times this summer.
“It just helps to go against anybody that’s athletic running the ball,” Patriots edge defender Josh Uche said Wednesday. “Working on your leverage, working on your fundamentals, tackling, all of that stuff. It definitely helps when you have somebody that’s not a pocket passer.”
Patriots safety Jalen Mills wouldn’t “spill the beans” on whether Cunningham specifically is running the scout team (Cunningham is imitating Hurts in practice, according to a source).
He would say that the team’s scout-teamers have done “a really, really good job” this week and that he found it valuable to face off against Cunningham in training camp.
“He is a very talented guy,” Mills said. “You saw him in the preseason game. Getting that look early can definitely be helpful, because you do got a guy who can take off and run with the ball at any point, and he can throw the ball, as well.”
The Patriots typically employ pocket passers in the mold of Mac Jones or Tom Brady. So it is unique to have an option on the scout team who can imitate a player like Hurts, who rushed for 760 yards with 13 touchdowns last season.
A scout-team player’s primary job is to replicate an offense, not a player, however.
“When you’ve got a person like Malik back there it does help out a lot because that’s what you’re going to see,” veteran safety Adrian Phillips said. “But I would say it’s really more about the concepts of what they do.
“We play so many running quarterbacks now that it is what it is. You can throw somebody back there and get the look. I feel like what we need to do is focus on the concepts of what they do and the RPOs and just the different little wrinkles that they have. I think that’s where we get the real advantage. Because Jalen, he’s a mobile quarterback 100%. But at the same time he makes a lot of great throws from the pocket.”
And that’s why Hurts is a starting quarterback and Cunningham is not. Hurts completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 3,701 yards with 22 touchdowns and six interceptions while leading the Eagles to a 14-1 record and NFC championship last season. Cunningham, at this point in his career, is not as talented of a passer. So, it’s certainly possible that the Patriots are mixing in looks from Bailey Zappe or recently-signed QB Matt Corral to handle Hurts’ passing reps.