A bizarre season for the Houston Texans got even weirder on Wednesday.
The Houston Texans made the stunning decision to part ways with linebacker Zach Cunningham on Wednesday. Cunningham, a standout linebacker, was released a couple of days after getting benched in Week 13.
“We’ve got standards. Didn’t feel like those standards had been met consistently. And I feel like I made a decision that was the best for our team. This is about the team, it’s not about any individuals,” head coach David Culley said.
Culley added that the decision was not hard.
“It’s about the team, it’s not about any individual player. And one thing that we always talk about is, it that it’s not necessarily trying to being the best player on the team, but being the best player for the team, and that’s out motto,” he said.
Cunningham, a second round pick in 2017, signed a big contract extension in 2020. Now, he’s hitting the waiver wire.
There were a lot of reasons for the #Texans to try to make it work with Zach Cunningham, who the previous regime gave a 4-year, $58M contract. It didn’t happen. Now, the team has a $12.8M dead cap hit next year. So much to fix and get past in Houston.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 8, 2021
The NFL world is pretty surprised.
“Another stupid Texans move. Put Zach in another 3-4 system and he will shine. Dude is a sideline to sideline player he’s fast and will make plays just needs to get better on passing downs,” one fan tweeted.
“No good reason to cut him and not just keep him on the team. He wasn’t taking time from anyone. He wasn’t disliked in the locker room. He may have been overpaid but when you cut him and take on dead cap it makes no sense,” another fan tweeted.
NFL teams expect him to get claimed pretty quickly.
Talked to multiple teams on the back-end of the waiver wire about LB Zach Cunningham and the sentiment is the same: No way he falls to us. Widely expected to be claimed Thursday.
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) December 9, 2021
The Texans, meanwhile, are 2-10 on the season.
Houston will return to the field on Sunday against Seattle.
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