{"id":87570,"date":"2025-05-29T09:02:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T09:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/87570\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T09:02:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T09:02:18","slug":"former-texans-lb-zach-cunningham-signs-with-lions-ahead-of-otas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/87570\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Texans LB Zach Cunningham signs with Lions ahead of OTAs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former <a href=\"https:\/\/texanswire.usatoday.com\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/texanswire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Texans<\/a> standout has found a new home ahead of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p>According to multiple reports, the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/detroit-lions\/334\" data-autotag=\"a9d615a6-a025-4346-9c29-28956ed45852\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Detroit Lions<\/a> have<a href=\"https:\/\/lionswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/lions\/2025\/05\/27\/detroit-lions-roster-move-sign-zach-cunningham\/83874944007\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/lionswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/lions\/2025\/05\/27\/detroit-lions-roster-move-sign-zach-cunningham\/83874944007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> signed linebacker Zach Cunningham<\/a> to the roster ahead of training camp. The former <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/houston-texans\/325\" data-autotag=\"4fdb1a06-1d90-42ff-b7f7-5268ecaf7955\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Texans<\/a> starter will compete for reps and serve as a quality backup behind Jack Campbell and Alex Anzalone.<\/p>\n<p>A former second-round pick, Cunningham, 30, has spent eight years between four teams. Drafted out of Vanderbilt in the 2017 class, Cunningham quickly proved to be a tackling machine for Houston. He led the NFL in tackles in 2020 (164) and racked up three straight seasons with at least 100 tackles as an off-ball backer.<\/p>\n<p>Since leaving Houston, Cunningham has bounced around the NFL for the past few seasons, most recently playing sparingly on the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/denver-broncos\/332\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Denver Broncos<\/a>&#8216; roster in 2024. He&#8217;s also spent time with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/philadelphia-eagles\/354\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Eagles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/tennessee-titans\/336\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Titans<\/a>, most serving as a secondary option and special teams.<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham started 10 games for the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/philadelphia-eagles\/354\" data-autotag=\"c1b3a094-e294-4a77-b1b2-dbdbd5bfa2c5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Eagles<\/a> in 2023. Overall, he&#8217;s totaled 709 total tackles, 23 pass breakups, 6.5 sacks and an interception in eight years. The Texans will meet him on the practice field for their preseason joint practice ahead of their preseason showdown at Ford Field in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Houston Texans standout has found a new home ahead of the 2025 season. According to multiple&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[6261,6291,247,265,6262,1125,11333,146,113,2506,19,25,7,221,253,4440,16688,147,248,267,88,6,15,245,537,242,109,530,1602,1982,9,266,222,1980,381,2286,10464,8968,23371],"class_list":{"0":"post-87570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-alex","9":"tag-alex-anzalone","10":"tag-american","11":"tag-american-football","12":"tag-anzalone","13":"tag-campbell","14":"tag-cunningham","15":"tag-detroit","16":"tag-detroit-lions","17":"tag-detroitlions","18":"tag-draft","19":"tag-eagles","20":"tag-football","21":"tag-houston","22":"tag-houston-texans","23":"tag-jack","24":"tag-jack-campbell","25":"tag-lions","26":"tag-national","27":"tag-national-sports","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-nfl","30":"tag-nfl-draft","31":"tag-overall","32":"tag-overall-positive","33":"tag-philadelphia","34":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","35":"tag-positive","36":"tag-smg","37":"tag-smg-timely","38":"tag-sports","39":"tag-sports-news","40":"tag-texans","41":"tag-timely","42":"tag-university","43":"tag-vanderbilt","44":"tag-vanderbilt-university","45":"tag-zach","46":"tag-zach-cunningham"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}