Seems to me that Cunningham did pretty well setting the edge and in run-D generally as a stand-up ROLB in 3-4 sets his rookie season (2010). His coverage wasn’t great and he struggled to get home with his rush (though he did get some pressures), but he seemed to be developing well and had probably the most important part of 3-4 LB (run fits) very well in hand.
Last season, he was hampered by the lockout, injuries (hammy, IIRC) and scheme change (at 6033/266, I might not have played him much in the predominant 4-3 sets, either). But the most critical thing is that he apparently didn’t handle all the adversity very well and maybe lost some commitment. Still doesn’t alter the fact that he does have solid experience playing standup OLB.
The point being that, if he can continue to improve his rush from a 3-point DE position AND resume his run-D development from both a 2-pt and 3-pt stance, in a defense that projects to be doing a lot of morphing between 4-3 and 3-4 on the fly, cumulatively that provides significant value that a basic rush-end rookie like Francis may not.
