The New England Patriots have placed DL Dominique Easley on waivers Wednesday, according to Tom Curran.
- Curran adds that there was no one incident that led to Easley being released.
- Jason La Canfora reports that the decision to cut Easley wasn’t purely based on his performance, as their were off-the-field issues involving the former first-round selection.
- According to Jeff Howe, Easley’s knees are in “pretty bad shape, and there’s not a lot of room for improvement.”
Easley’s career has largely been marred by injury, as he appeared in just 22 games over the course of his two years in the NFL with both seasons ending with him on injured reserve. In college, Easley tore both of his ACLs while playing for Florida, so there were obvious concerns about injuries hampering his NFL career.
Even so, it’s still surprising to see the Patriots move on after two years.
For what’s worth, Doug Kyed mentions that the Cowboys, Bears, Seahawks and 49ers had interest in Easley back in 2014.
Easley, 23, was taken with the No. 29 overall pick during the 2014 NFL Draft. He is in the third of his four-year, $7.303 million rookie contract that included $5.887 million guaranteed and stands to make a base salary of $1.084 million for the 2016 season and another $1 million in 2017.
According to OverTheCap.com, cutting will increase Easley’s cap figure by $907,918 and create $2,899,795 in dead money.
In 2015, Easley appeared in 11 games for the Patriots and recorded 15 tackles and two sacks. Pro Football Focus gave him a solid rating overall last year, despite playing 275 snaps for the Patriots.
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