Patriots rookie Malik Cunningham is already playing quarterback, wide receiver and gunner, but he’s taken on another responsibility among his rookie class: mentor.
Wide receivers coach Ross Douglas said Friday that Cunningham is helping out fellow rookie wideouts Demario Douglas and Kayshon Boutte. All three players have been standouts for the Patriots this summer.
“The good thing about Malik is he loves football, and he really cares about being good,” Ross Douglas said. “That’s the first thing about him. So everything from there really takes care of itself.
“He’s even taking Demario and Kayshon under his wing, and they’ll walk through the plays, they’ll go in the virtual room back in Foxboro and just really try to get a beat on the next day’s install and really just try to perfect their craft. So, Malik is very mature, he’s very professional already as a rookie, and he takes his craft very seriously. That’s why he’s able to kind of juggle both the quarterback and wide receiver position. He’s not perfect, but the want to and the intentions are there.”
Cunningham was Louisville’s starting quarterback for four years, so he’s used to leading his teammates. He played quarterback in rookie minicamp, primarily switched to wide receiver for OTAs, minicamp and the start of training camp, and now he’s dabbling in both positions. He was really the lone bright spot for the Patriots’ offense in their preseason-opening loss to the Houston Texans, scoring their lone touchdown.
Cunningham saw some action at both positions this week in joint practices with the Packers. It wouldn’t be surprising if the Patriots kept using him in both roles moving forward, potentially even into the regular season.
“Malik’s made a lot of progress, because when he came in dating back to when he first started playing football in Pop Warner, high school, college, he had never played the wide receiver position,” Douglas said. “He was starting from scratch. He’s made a lot of progress. We still have a long way to go, but just seeing the difference from what to was back in May and June to what it is now is significantly better. We still have a long way to go, but he’s definitely making progress.”
Douglas appears to already be a near-roster lock for the Patriots as a 2023 sixth-round pick as he’s excelled out of the slot. Boutte had a slow start to training camp but has had a knack for impressive catches as the summer was wore on.
Douglas has been encouraged by what he’s seen from both players since they were taken in the sixth round.
“Those guys ever since we drafted them and got them into the offseason program and in our strength and conditioning program — just get them around the vets — they’ve gotten better every single day that they’ve been here,” Douglas said. “Just constant growth in everything that has to do with the wide receiver position, and they’ve grown in the classroom, grown on the field. That’s the measure that you want to measure these young guys by, how much better are they getting. And those two are definitely getting better.”