{"id":60721,"date":"2019-03-25T17:56:58","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T21:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnfl.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=60721"},"modified":"2021-05-30T18:27:44","modified_gmt":"2021-05-30T22:27:44","slug":"darqueze-dennard-signs-cincinnati-bengals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2019\/03\/25\/darqueze-dennard-signs-cincinnati-bengals\/","title":{"rendered":"Darqueze Dennard Re-Signs With Cincinnati Bengals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/D\/DennDa00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Darqueze Dennard<\/a><\/strong> has signed a one-year, $5 million contract with the Cincinnati Bengals, per NFL Network&#8217;s <strong>Ian Rapoport<\/strong>. The exact amount of guaranteed money is currently unknown to the public, although Rapoport reports that Dennard turned a multi-year deal to re-test the market in 2020.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Bengals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Bengals<\/a> re-signed CB Darqueze Dennard to a one-year contract worth $5M, source said. He preferred a one-year over a multi-year, with a shot at the market next offseason.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RapSheet\/status\/1110290000371802112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 25, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1><strong>Darqueze Dennard, Cincinnati Bengals Agree to Contract<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Dennard has had an up and down career with the <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/bengals\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a>. The former 24th overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft has found a hard time seeing the field. Dennard shared a room with a number of talented cornerbacks. With veterans such as <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/H\/HallLe98.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leon Hall<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/K\/KirkDr00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dre Kirkpatrick<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/N\/NewmTe20.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Terence Newman<\/a><\/strong>, and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/J\/JonePa20.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adam Jones<\/a><\/strong>, Dennard had a tough time finding his footing in the Bengals secondary.<\/p>\n<p>Dennard is coming off his second-best season as a pro. In 2018, Dennard played in 13 games, starting in nine of them. A sternoclavicular joint injury sidelined Dennard for three games. There has been only one season Dennard has played all 16 games, which happened in the 2017 season.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, Dennard posted 68 total tackles and two forced fumbles. While the stats are not overwhelming, Dennard has shown potential to be a solid second or third option as a cornerback. Dennard is not quite a shutdown corner, and probably will not be left in predictable one-on-one matchups. But Dennard can hold his own and is capable of playing at a high level.<\/p>\n<p>In Dennard&#8217;s first two seasons, Dennard recorded a combined 35 tackles, one forced fumble, one interception and four passes defensed. Dennard played in 24 of a possible 32 games, suffering a season-ending injury in Week 10 of the 2015 season.<\/p>\n<p>The 2016 season saw huge improvement from Dennard, coming off his shoulder injury in 2015. Dennard recorded 41 total tackles, 28 solo. Dennard&#8217;s best and most productive season came in 2017. A career-high was in place for almost every category for Dennard, recording 83 total tackles, two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown, six passes defended, a fumble recovery, and two sacks. If Dennard can put up numbers like that consistently, a big payday could be in his near future.<\/p>\n<p>Dennard is Georgia born and raised. He attended Twiggs County High School, playing football, basketball, and running track during his time there. His best year came his senior year, as a two-way player, playing both wide receiver and cornerback. Dennard recorded 50 tackles, nine interceptions, and two touchdowns on defense while catching 40 passes for 11 touchdowns on offense.<\/p>\n<p>Dennard later signed with the Michigan State Spartans following his high school career. He finished his college career with 165 total tackles, 10 interceptions, and won the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/T\/ThorJi20.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jim Thorpe<\/a><\/strong> Award for the best secondary player in the country.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"2O2n1PUES45avEV9pVMVDw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/855297710\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'2O2n1PUES45avEV9pVMVDw',sig:'y3RnhMl4QrVWpn454Ci9RvpFGg5CJOwalbnE7eNCQz0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'855297710',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former 2014 first round pick Darqueze Dennard to sign with. Dennard is coming off his fifth season in the league. recording 68 tackles and two forced fumbles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2954,"featured_media":60789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"Darqueze Dennard to sign with","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"300","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,7,54],"tags":[4547,330,4929,1608],"class_list":["post-60721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-bengals","category-editorials","tag-2019-nfl-season","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-darqueze-dennard","tag-nfl-free-agency"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2954"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}