Do the struggling New England Patriots have something up their sleeve for their game against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday?

On Saturday, the NFL team announced it had signed practice-squad member Malik Cunningham to the 53-player active roster, but the Patriots didn’t indicate what the former Alabama prep star would be called upon to do on Sunday.

Cunningham passed for 2,913 yards and 30 touchdowns and ran for 1,015 yards and 19 touchdowns as a senior at Park Crossing High School in Montgomery. During his college career at Louisville, Cunningham had 9,660 passing yards, 70 touchdown passes, 3,179 rushing yards and 50 rushing touchdowns.

New England signed Cunningham in May with the intention of turning the quarterback into a wide receiver and special-teams contributor as it had done with Julian Edelman to great success. But while Cunningham has undertaken the transition, he also has worked at QB, too.

In the Patriots’ preseason games, Cunningham ran six times for 39 yards and one touchdown, completed 3-of-6 passes for 19 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions, caught one pass that lost 1 yard and returned a kickoff 21 yards.

During the past week, New England coach Bill Belichick and offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien praised Cunningham for his work and improvement with the Patriots’ practice squad.

Did New England sign Cunningham to the active roster to work as a multi-position, change-of-pace quarterback (like the New Orleans Saints’ Taysom Hill, whom Cunningham imitated on the Patriots’ scout team last week) or as a depth piece with the wide-receivers corps heading into Sunday’s game without JuJu Smith-Schuster and DeMario “Pop” Douglas because of concussions?

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New England has a 1-4 record. The Patriots’ offense produced three touchdowns in the first game of the season, two in the second, one in the third and none in the fourth and fifth as New England has been beaten by the Dallas Cowboys 38-3 and New Orleans 34-0 in its past two games.

The Patriots have pulled starting quarterback Mac Jones from both games before the fourth quarter, with backup Bailey Zappe finishing the contests under center for New England.

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The Patriots and Raiders square off at 3:05 p.m. CDT Sunday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.