So by now you’ve heard the news, the Patriots traded Jamie Collins yesterday and because of the bye week, we get to spend the next two weeks doing nothing but trying to figure out why. The resulting media maelstrom was entirely predictable since this is the biggest BB shocker move in the age of social media over-saturation, where everyone has an opinion and will express their outrage.
Yesterday, I wrote some initial thoughts, but as things have simmered and the talking points have coalesced, it’s time to wade into the fray again to try and make some sense it.
The one thing I keep coming back to is the famous “we’re building a team, not collecting talent” quote. Whatever the reasons may or may not be, and there are plenty of them, Belichick believed the team, and specifically the defense, would be better without a super talented player like Collins.
We can talk about him being inconsistent at times (who isn’t?) or that he wanted a monster deal the Patriots would never get him, or whatever else has popped up over the last 24 hours, but no one outside the building has the full picture like Bill Belichick does. No one knows the internal team dynamics nor the true X-and-O’s like him.
Belichick has certainly earned the benefit of the doubt by this point, and you know your faithful blogger is going to give him that, but it’s understandable why so many are scratching their heads at the move. Especially considering the fantasy football influence where talent (fantasy points) trumps everything else. Many simply cannot wrap their head around how losing a talented player can make a team better, but it happens all the time.
Historically, and we’re talking an abnormally huge sample size here, Belichick has almost always known exactly what buttons to push, even when the rest of the football-following world is up in arms.
Mike Lombardi has a lot of Patriots media weight these days. He’s always been a great analyst, and now that he’s been inside the Patriots organization, his word carries even more weight. His main take is that this was about Collins’ performance (and this is as close as you’ll ever get me to posting anything this Undisputed show, only because Shannon and Bayless don’t speak).
.@mlombardifoxtv on Patriots trading Jamie Collins: This is about performance, not pettiness. pic.twitter.com/58gFI7eAxH
— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) November 1, 2016
So why did Belichick need to send a message to this defense? What’s so abnormally terrible about the Patriots defense this year? The 3rd down and red zone numbers that everyone was harping on the last couple weeks have gone up every week. Here at the halfway point, the defense’s rankings are pretty much at what we’ve seen the last few years from them. And their points-per-game is at its lowest level since 2006.
The only areas that are noticeably down are sacks, where they’re on track for 26 on the season after getting 49 last year, and their defensive pass DVOA, where they’re ranked 25th.
We could easily make the argument that, despite these issues, they’ve been trending upward and that it was only a matter of time before all the talented players started playing up to what was expected before this season when we thought we had a potential top-10 unit.
Collins couldn’t handle a demotion from run downs? That wouldn’t have lit a fire without having to send him to Cleveland?
In retrospect, it’s obvious Belichick believed this defense’s issues would not course correct and that the defense needed a major kick in the ass, even bigger than simply benching one of his most talented players. So just what are those issues?
Their front seven has not been winning one-on-one matchups all season long and if I had to boil it all down to one statement about the Patriots’ defensive struggles, that, along with suspect tackling at times, would be it. Yes, sack stats can be overrated, but here I do think that they show where the problems lie.
No one can tell me the Patriots’ front seven can’t win those one-on-one matchups, or finish the quarterback off like they failed to do multiple times against Tyrod Taylor when he was right there. Anyone who watches the games knows they are better than they’re playing and that no matter how the stats have trended, the personality that this defense had established was not one Belichick wanted.
This tells me that the defense is lacking the fire and sense of urgency in Belichick’s eyes, not unlike 2009’s disaster defense that looked solid statistically, but disintegrated at the first sign of adversity. It’s not about “freelancing” or the scheme or the talent level, as much as it’s about not competing to an expected level. That’s where getting rid of Collins makes the most sense to me, especially if, in the eyes of the coaches, Collins was one of the worst offenders of the non-competers.
There’s no question Belichick would have 11 untalented defenders who give non-stop effort over 11 uber-talented defenders whose effort ebbs and flows. This is less about Collins, and more about Sheard, Long, Ninkovich, Hightower and the others in the front seven who simply are not playing up to what the Patriots expect out of them.
If this move sparks those guys to play up to those expectations, the Patriots defense will hit the level we thought we’d see before the season. Even without Collins, the talent is still there.
It sucks that it cost a talented player who I enjoyed watching to light this fire, and there’s no guarantee that it will all work out with Super Bowl number five, but those are the risks that Bill Belichick is willing to make.
He’s built the best football coaching career in history taking those risks and this is the most interesting one yet.
