Dennard joined the Patriots as a 2012 seventh-round draft choice. He was a low-risk, high-reward selection in the sense that he was supposed to be drafted earlier but plummeted because of an off-field incident a few days before the draft.
Dennard played some good football for the Patriots his first two seasons, starting 16 of 23 games in which he played.
In November 2013, coach Bill Belichick said, "I think Zo has developed quite a bit. A big gap for him was the amount of time he missed in [2012] training camp and the early part of the season. So, he started playing midseason without kind of the buildup that you would like a player to have. [In 2013], that hasn't been the case at all. He was out there a lot in training camp and the early season. He's had a much more consistent start to the season to develop his techniques and his timing and his reaction and recognition. He's a physical player. He plays the ball well. He's a very competitive guy. No matter what the situation is, he wants to get out there and battle it out with the receivers. As does Aqib [Talib] and Kyle [Arrington]. It's good to have guys like that. They want the challenge. They want to get out there and be challenged in critical situations and respond to it and make the play. He's got a lot of confidence. He's a key part of the secondary. I'm glad we have him."
So what changed from that point to now?
Patriots' Projected CB Depth Chart
Malcolm Butler
Bradley Fletcher
Kyle Arrington (slot)
Logan Ryan
Robert McClain
Chimdi Chekwa
Justin Green
Dax Swanson
Darryl Roberts
Dennard didn't have the standard offseason prior to the 2014 season, in part because he was serving 35 days of a possible 60-day sentence following a violation of his probation stemming from an April 2012 arrest.
Then Dennard essentially dropped off the radar in 2014, playing in six games (four starts) and landing on injured reserve late in the season. The Patriots brought in Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner to be their top corners, which was a factor, but when Dennard was on the field, he struggled noticeably at times and looked nothing like the player we saw in his first two seasons (e.g., versus Green Bay on Nov. 30).
One line of thinking this year was that perhaps Dennard, with a full offseason to devote to his craft, could recapture some of what made him a productive corner for the team in 2012 and 2013.
But whatever the Patriots saw behind the scenes over the past two weeks at the voluntary offseason program, coupled with a $1.542 million salary, led them in the opposite direction. The Patriots save $1.032 million in cap space with the move.
