Zach Cunningham

Even if a dreary season awaits the Texans, Cunningham's IDP investors won't mind. Cunningham is a competent linebacker and might need to spend a lot of time on the field in 2021, so tackle totals could get quite high as he makes the futile attempt to clean up the ongoing mess that is Houston's defense. That's pretty much how it worked last season, when Cunningham raced to 164 tackles on just 944 snaps. Like the three players ahead of him on this list, Cunningham is a blue-chip IDP in almost any format.

With two seasons of triple-digit tackle production in a row, including 142 last year, it's safe to say that Cunningham is clearly the better IDP option between himself and fellow standout linebacker Benardrick McKinney. Based on his per-snap tackle production over the last two years, Cunningham should only need about 900 snaps to approach 130 stops. If he trends toward or above 1,000 snaps, though, Cunningham could push for the top five among linebacker IDPs. Cunningham lived behind the line of scrimmage at Vanderbilt, so it's reasonable to err toward optimism with his projection.

Cunningham was known as an athletic disruptor behind the line of scrimmage at Vanderbilt, but his blitzing game has yet to develop in the NFL despite some encouraging signs. There's no guarantee this part of his game ever comes around, but it very well could as he heads into his age-24 season, and if it does then he will fly up the IDP leaderboard. If nothing else, he's already confirmed the ability to pile up tackles, with his total from last year occurring on just 752 snaps. Those 107 stops would project to roughly 142 tackles over 1,000 snaps.

The departure of Brian Cushing creates a void at inside linebacker, but Cunningham, a 2017 second-round pick out of Vanderbilt, gained a ton of experience during his rookie season and should step right in. When Cushing was tagged with a 10-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs, Cunningham was forced to learn on the fly and became a three-down linebacker quickly. He made 13 starts and finished with 90 tackles, second on the team behind fellow inside linebacker Bernardrick McKinney.