Collins traded to Cleveland per Schefter

tims4wins

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This isn't the be-all, end-all, but:

Collins has played 1,109 snaps and missed 387 snaps in the regular season since the 2015 opener. There was virtually no difference in the opposing quarterbacks' Total QBR scores when Collins was on the field (53.8) compared with when he was off it (54.6). The Patriots' opponents actually fared better with Collins on the field across a range of categories: yards per play, yards per rush, yards per pass attempt and third-down conversion rate.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Branch wasn't going to play for the Pats in 2006 under any circumstances save the one of getting a franchise-destroying contract. .

Why is this so difficult to understand? He held out all summer. He held out into the season. He was willing to hold out for the entire season. He turned down a 3 year extension. He eventually got a deal from Seattle that turned out to be terrible for the team because Branch immediately showed he wasn't worth the money.
 

rodderick

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He wasn't going to play for the Pats in 2006 under any circumstances save the one of getting a franchise-destroying contract. .

Why is this so difficult to understand? He held out all summer. He held out into the season. He was willing to hold out for the entire season.
I've said time and time again that they made the right move. I'm not questioning how they approached the situation, merely stating that, in my opinion, for that particular season dealing/not resigning Deion Branch likely lowered their Super Bowl odds.

But I've derailed the thread enough with my nonsense, I won't keep going on this tangent.
 

Eddie Jurak

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One half nitpick, the Pats weren't automatically getting a 3rd round comp pick for Collins if he left. If they kept Collins and didn't resign them and then signed, just to make up examples, Alshon Jeffery or Stephon Gilmore they probably get offset under the rules and no compensation is awarded.
Good point, but the counter argument would be that the money Collins would have received goes instead to Hightower, Butler, other internal options.

Edit: To me, the key question here is not whether Collins should have been re-signed. It is whether the modest return they got for him outweighs the value of having him around for 8 to 11 more games including playoffs and then letting him walk or playing franchise tag games. Color me unconvinced.
 

LaszloKovacks

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Put me in the camp that believes he was about to be effectively benched for Roberts, and BB saw the fallout becoming a distraction at a time in the season when they really need to be putting everything together to ramp up for the playoffs. There was no way he was going to gladly accept a depth player/ST'er role with the spectre of his contract looming.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Put me in the camp that believes he was about to be effectively benched for Roberts, and BB saw the fallout becoming a distraction at a time in the season when they really need to be putting everything together to ramp up for the playoffs. There was no way he was going to gladly accept a depth player/ST'er role with the spectre of his contract looming.
So slap him on IR after his next owie.
 

RedOctober3829

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I love you Red, but 95% of the time when these things happen with the Pats you start pissed off then in a day or two post "I'm coming around on this..."

Here's hoping :)
I'm sure this will happen again, but for now I am allowed to be irrationally pissed off :). It's very shocking to see a player traded that you, I, and probably all of us thought was going to be the next great Patriots LB.

I will never come around to the fact that taking a talent like Collins off the team is a good thing. As most have said, something must have happened behind the scenes we are not privy to yet. It's very interesting though that all these contract demands all of a sudden appear after he's traded. There's nothing like team-fed media spin.
 

loshjott

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Put me in the camp that believes he was about to be effectively benched for Roberts, and BB saw the fallout becoming a distraction at a time in the season when they really need to be putting everything together to ramp up for the playoffs. There was no way he was going to gladly accept a depth player/ST'er role with the spectre of his contract looming.
This is my line of thinking also.
 

Stitch01

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I'm sure this will happen again, but for now I am allowed to be irrationally pissed off :). It's very shocking to see a player traded that you, I, and probably all of us thought was going to be the next great Patriots LB.

I will never come around to the fact that taking a talent like Collins off the team is a good thing. As most have said, something must have happened behind the scenes we are not privy to yet. It's very interesting though that all these contract demands all of a sudden appear after he's traded. There's nothing like team-fed media spin.
I do think, of all the players the Pats have traded in moves like this, Collins is the player with the biggest risk of becoming a star somewhere else (which is not to say it would have happened here).
 

Ed Hillel

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Here's the real issue: Collins would be a great complementary LB to keep around, but Roberts was outplaying him and BB clearly wanted him to get an increasing number of snaps. Maybe it's 50-50, maybe Roberts gets a few more than Collins, maybe it's vice versa.

Jamie Collins reportedly wants a "Von Miller contract" and may have gotten into a big argument with his boss recently.

Someone explain to me how that works moving forward. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if Collins requested a trade.
 

Stitch01

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BB on WEEI: I didn't speak to Cleveland but Nick did. I'm not sure how long this was in the works for.
hahahahahahaha yeah Im sure Nick Caserio just walked in today and said "Hey Bill, nbd but I just shipped Jamie Collins to Cleveland, no problem right"?
 

MarcSullivaFan

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I'm sure this will happen again, but for now I am allowed to be irrationally pissed off :). It's very shocking to see a player traded that you, I, and probably all of us thought was going to be the next great Patriots LB.

I will never come around to the fact that taking a talent like Collins off the team is a good thing. As most have said, something must have happened behind the scenes we are not privy to yet. It's very interesting though that all these contract demands all of a sudden appear after he's traded. There's nothing like team-fed media spin.
I agree with your general reaction to the trade, but disagree about the leaks about contract negotiations. The Pats FO is way too smart to leak information about a contract that is still under negotiation. It hurts the negotiation process and lowers their leverage in the trade market.

I mean, I get the concern that the local media is just carrying their water and trashing a player on the way out, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. These aren't the Sox we're talking about. ;)
 

ifmanis5

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Here's the real issue: Collins would be a great complementary LB to keep around, but Roberts was outplaying him and BB clearly wanted him to get an increasing number of snaps. Maybe it's 50-50, maybe Roberts gets a few more than Collins, maybe it's vice versa.

Jamie Collins reportedly wants a "Von Miller contract" and may have gotten into a big argument with his boss recently.

Someone explain to me how that works moving forward. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if Collins requested a trade.
I agree with this and I think the trade is the right move. Has to go, can't stay and be a malcontent, doesn't work and you can't have it infecting the team. It's just shocking and disappointing that it came to this. Collins and Jones looked like cornerstone players and now they're both gone.
 

Shelterdog

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I agree with this and I think the trade is the right move. Has to go, can't stay and be a malcontent, doesn't work and you can't have it infecting the team. It's just shocking and disappointing that it came to this. Collins and Jones looked like cornerstone players and now they're both gone.
It would have been nice to keep them but the problem is we did to good a job in player selection--even if they're all worth top of the market contracts you just can't keep all four of Butler, Hightower, Jones and Collins or else you're going to have a very top heavy team that falls apart very quickly in about 2019.
 

EdRalphRomero

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Here's the real issue: Collins would be a great complementary LB to keep around, but Roberts was outplaying him and BB clearly wanted him to get an increasing number of snaps. Maybe it's 50-50, maybe Roberts gets a few more than Collins, maybe it's vice versa.

Jamie Collins reportedly wants a "Von Miller contract" and may have gotten into a big argument with his boss recently.

Someone explain to me how that works moving forward. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if Collins requested a trade.
This seems to be the most reasonable view of the situation. The truth is there is a lot of information that we simply don't have. We don't know how Collins was in the locker-room. We don't know how he was taking coaching. We don't know how the contract negotiations were/were not impacting his play. There are indications he was unhappy and there were indications that BB wanted Roberts on the field more than Collins.

I like to think of life in terms of having my own personal Magnificent 7. I'm happiest when I find someone who is so good at something (sharpshooter, knife-guy, football coach) that I can just trust their actions implicitly. Bill Belichick is absolutely in my personal Magnificent 7. So, I'm just gonna assume that this was BB taking another great shot and hope it doesn't turn out he was aiming for the horse.
 

MarcSullivaFan

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Here's the real issue: Collins would be a great complementary LB to keep around, but Roberts was outplaying him and BB clearly wanted him to get an increasing number of snaps. Maybe it's 50-50, maybe Roberts gets a few more than Collins, maybe it's vice versa.

Jamie Collins reportedly wants a "Von Miller contract" and may have gotten into a big argument with his boss recently.

Someone explain to me how that works moving forward. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if Collins requested a trade.

I don't know, but if Roberts or HT get hurt, they'll be SOL.
 

mauf

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It appears that Collins had showed signs of an attitude problem as he played himself out of a starting job. In hindsight, maybe you can second-guess the decision not to pay Jones, but I think BB had little choice but to trade Collins. Considering he was acting under duress, I think the return is surprisingly solid.
 

JokersWildJIMED

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Other than getting held by the face mask on Taylor's 3rd quarter touchdown run, Collins was invisible yesterday. Unlike last year, he has struggled generating any pressure on blitzes...not sure if that is scheme or on Collins, but he has not been the same player as in the previous two years.
 

PedroKsBambino

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hahahahahahaha yeah Im sure Nick Caserio just walked in today and said "Hey Bill, nbd but I just shipped Jamie Collins to Cleveland, no problem right"?
Well said. Zero chance BB wasn't the driver of things here.

On Bedard's LT comparison, I think if Collins were as good as LT that BB would have built the scheme to enable him to do that stuff. But he's not, so BB didn't, and thus it doesn't play effectively. Even LT is part of an overall defense, and reason to think Collins wasnt playing his role
 

ifmanis5

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LT was tolerated because he produced (on a HOF/Best Ever level no less). Collins is not being tolerated because he wasn't producing.
 

Stitch01

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The more contemporary analogy that sprung to mind for me (and this is different talent level/position etc) isnt LT but Patrick Chung. He was useless towards the end of his first tenure here and BB has said that he wasn't really utilizing Chung's talents correctly and that the two had a pretty good heart-to-heart about it before Chung came back here. He's been a much more effective player the second go round. So I don't think its out of the realm of possibility that, given Collins apparent talents, there might have been a way to utilize his skill set more effectively. But that's sort of a different discussion then whether he should have been traded today.
 

Saints Rest

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The more contemporary analogy that sprung to mind for me (and this is different talent level/position etc) isnt LT but Patrick Chung. He was useless towards the end of his first tenure here and BB has said that he wasn't really utilizing Chung's talents correctly and that the two had a pretty good heart-to-heart about it before Chung came back here. He's been a much more effective player the second go round. So I don't think its out of the realm of possibility that, given Collins apparent talents, there might have been a way to utilize his skill set more effectively. But that's sort of a different discussion then whether he should have been traded today.
Chung is an interesting name to bring up. It wasn't too long ago that Collins was seen as The Guy for covering TE's. That role is now clearly Chung's.
 
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REEEEEALLY looking forward to the off-season, when Collins re-signs with the Patriots for $9.5 mill per and we still get the 3rd/4th rounder plus a chastened athletic LB.

Just (mostly) kidding.
 

joe dokes

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Yeah, comparing Collins to LT is laughable. Bedard is out of his mind per usual.
Yeah but he was FIRST in placing the blame for losing the 2017 SuperBowl squarely on Belichick's decision to trade Collins. That counts for something.
 

dbn

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That was also 30 fucking years ago. It was a different league with different offenses running different systems.
To your point, it took me a while to figure out who everyone was talking about until your post. The first name I think of when I see LT is Lawrence Taylor, but I still didn't make the connection because, well, what you said.
 

RedOctober3829

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That was also 30 fucking years ago. It was a different league with different offenses running different systems.
The generation makes no difference when you're talking maximizing a player's talent.

It's obvious what BB was trying to get through to him wasn't working and they made a decision to move on. Time will tell whether this self-created loss makes a difference.
 

soxfan121

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Say what you will about LT - he was a coked up crazy person is probably the kindest - but he also never, ever disappeared on a football field. He was a fucking force on every snap. If he was not involved in a play, it was because three dudes wrestled his coked-up crazy self to the ground or he was held.

Jaime Collins flashed otherworldly ability - every few games making a single play that made jaws drop. However, for every Houston game performance, he had three other games (usually in a row) where he was a non-factor or an active detriment to the game plan. When he gambled and won, he looked great - he made plays fans remember. When he gambled and guessed wrong, he would be the reason for a 3rd down allowed or a big play given up - and fans would not recognize it, because ... defense is interconnected and guys like Collins who freelance in the Pats system get hidden by the other 10 guys doing their job. Collins too often didn't do his job. And his brilliant plays and/or games were too few and far between.

The Pats could have changed their entire philosophy defensively and just "turned Collins loose" - but why toss overboard a system that works for 10 of 11 guys when the 11th isn't a consistent, reliable force? Collins play didn't justify such a move by the coaches. He was awesome once in every 25 snaps or so. Sometimes, he had 25 great snaps in a row; but he'd then have 100 that weren't awesome to even out the sample that proved him to be "potentially great, but too often invisible."
 

Toe Nash

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Put me in the camp that believes he was about to be effectively benched for Roberts, and BB saw the fallout becoming a distraction at a time in the season when they really need to be putting everything together to ramp up for the playoffs. There was no way he was going to gladly accept a depth player/ST'er role with the spectre of his contract looming.
Yeah, I've thought about it all day and this makes sense to me. He may not have been making any noise yet but he'd definitely not take a demotion lightly with so much money on the table and you can't blame him. And you can't make this decision later because of the deadline.

Once you've decided to trade him, this is about the best return you're going to get, especially if you don't want him going to a team that could hurt you later.
 

Stitch01

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Say what you will about LT - he was a coked up crazy person is probably the kindest - but he also never, ever disappeared on a football field. He was a fucking force on every snap. If he was not involved in a play, it was because three dudes wrestled his coked-up crazy self to the ground or he was held.

Jaime Collins flashed otherworldly ability - every few games making a single play that made jaws drop. However, for every Houston game performance, he had three other games (usually in a row) where he was a non-factor or an active detriment to the game plan. When he gambled and won, he looked great - he made plays fans remember. When he gambled and guessed wrong, he would be the reason for a 3rd down allowed or a big play given up - and fans would not recognize it, because ... defense is interconnected and guys like Collins who freelance in the Pats system get hidden by the other 10 guys doing their job. Collins too often didn't do his job. And his brilliant plays and/or games were too few and far between.

The Pats could have changed their entire philosophy defensively and just "turned Collins loose" - but why toss overboard a system that works for 10 of 11 guys when the 11th isn't a consistent, reliable force? Collins play didn't justify such a move by the coaches. He was awesome once in every 25 snaps or so. Sometimes, he had 25 great snaps in a row; but he'd then have 100 that weren't awesome to even out the sample that proved him to be "potentially great, but too often invisible."
Maybe better for a different thread, but right now a lot of the defense isn't doing its job and the defense is pretty average, which I think is part of the reason this move was made. I'll be interested to see what, if any, personnel or scheme changes we see on defense post bye.
 

jercra

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hahahahahahaha yeah Im sure Nick Caserio just walked in today and said "Hey Bill, nbd but I just shipped Jamie Collins to Cleveland, no problem right"?
It's not possible BB said "See what you can get for Collins, we're not extending him." and then Nick Caserio did all of the legwork finding a deal the BB then approved? Seems plausible to me.
 

Stitch01

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I mean, yeah, that's plausible for the mechanics of it, but "Im not sure how long this has been in the works" isn't. BB made that call, knows when he made that call, and it wasn't like this morning. They traded for a LB and worked out three LB's the next day last week.
 

riboflav

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He's not comparing Collins to LT in terms of talent. He's saying LT was undisciplined and did his own thing but BB found a role for him to succeed in.
Yeah, because he was LT. JC is not LT. With his level of talent, if he's doing his own thing, you say buh bye.
 

RG33

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Maybe better for a different thread, but right now a lot of the defense isn't doing its job and the defense is pretty average, which I think is part of the reason this move was made. I'll be interested to see what, if any, personnel or scheme changes we see on defense post bye.
I don't think this defense has reached its peak by any means, and they have certainly given up yardage along the way, but they also have given up the 5th fewest points in the league -- with 4 of the teams ahead of them all having played 1 fewer game. I don't know if I would say this defense "isn't doing its job".
 

Stitch01

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I don't want to rehash the whole points allowed thing since we've done it several times in the last couple of weeks, but suffice it to say I don't think that stat is indicative of the quality of the defense and if BB did I doubt we'd have seen the trade that occurred today.
 

ifmanis5

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FWIW, Lombardi on Simmons pod today: "Either you're coaching it or letting it happen, Bill decided he's not going to let it happen anymore." Was very critical of Collins and the lack of leadership on the defense in general. Said they made bad and mediocre QBs look good. Bill had seen enough and had to get it under control so he stepped up.
 

dcmissle

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FWIW, Lombardi on Simmons pod today: "Either you're coaching it or letting it happen, Bill decided he's not going to let it happen anymore." Was very critical of Collins and the lack of leadership on the defense in general. Said they made bad and mediocre QBs look good. Bill had seen enough and had to get it under control so he stepped up.
Stitch on fire in this thread, soxfan's post awesome, and Shelter made the essential point this afternoon -- losing him not a big loss and if it were, the trade would not have been made. The draft pick compensation was incidental.

The guy had to go and the Lombardi positioning on this explained why: he's not doing what he's asked to do; he is trying to create a highlight reel in his walk year. So yeah, he has to go. It all makes sense.