Patriots Select OLB Jamie Collins at #52

[SpacemanzGerbil]

 
whatisthisidon'teven.

What had the brother done to dispel that appearance? He was barely getting snaps in preseason, never mind the regular season. Usually, that means ugly business with Bill. It has happened with a lot of drafted players though the years. 
 
I don't understand how my admitting I was wrong about a player is at all controversial. 

 

[Tony C]

It's the internet, for some people it's about a virtual world that includes never being wrong and pretend stomping on anyone who is less than omniscient.

 

[Rico Guapo]

What had the brother done to dispel that appearance? He was barely getting snaps in preseason, never mind the regular season. Usually, that means ugly business with Bill. It has happened with a lot of drafted players though the years. 
 
I don't understand how my admitting I was wrong about a player is at all controversial. 

 
It's not controversial to admit you were wrong, I was just giving you shit for labeling someone as a bust after half a season of football.
 

It's the internet, for some people it's about a virtual world that includes never being wrong and pretend stomping on anyone who is less than omniscient.

 
hlord:

 

[Shelterdog]

What had the brother done to dispel that appearance? He was barely getting snaps in preseason, never mind the regular season. Usually, that means ugly business with Bill. It has happened with a lot of drafted players though the years. 
 
I don't understand how my admitting I was wrong about a player is at all controversial. 

 
He was playing on all four special teams units (unlike your favorite pick for the last ten years the ususally inactive Jake Bequette).so that's something: he would only have done that if he was working hard, picking up the special teams playbook, etc.  He was also a fairly late second round pick on a team with pretty good talent at linebacker and a fairly complex system so it's not surprising that he didn't just grab a ton of playing time early.
 
EDIT: There are a ton of examples of BB not playing talent defensive players much as rookies. Warren only started four games and Wilfork six; Asante got fairly frequent playing time in sub packages as a rookie but wasn't a starter; BMW didn't get much run until late in his rookie year but was playing essentially full time when the playoffs came around; Patrick Chung also didn't play much for most of his rookie year but came on late. 

 

[SpacemanzGerbil]

 
He was playing on all four special teams units (unlike your favorite pick for the last ten years the ususally inactive Jake Bequette).so that's something: he would only have done that if he was working hard, picking up the special teams playbook, etc.  He was also a fairly late second round pick on a team with pretty good talent at linebacker and a fairly complex system so it's not surprising that he didn't just grab a ton of playing time early.
 
EDIT: There are a ton of examples of BB not playing talent defensive players much as rookies. Warren only started four games and Wilfork six; Asante got fairly frequent playing time in sub packages as a rookie but wasn't a starter; BMW didn't get much run until late in his rookie year but was playing essentially full time when the playoffs came around; Patrick Chung also didn't play much for most of his rookie year but came on late. 

Hell, two of my favorites from that draft aren't panning out. Derek Wolfe might be dead.
 
As for the second part, you are right. They weren't starters.They still got plenty of snaps, though. By the halfway point of this season, Collins was barely seeing the field, and when he did he was either invisible or looked like shit. 
 
I have never had a problem admitted I was wrong, and in this case, I am delighted that it looks like I was very, very wrong. If Saturday's performance is a harbinger of things to come, they've landed themselves a linebacker who can legitimately make impact plays on every down. This is very exciting.

 

[Shelterdog]

Hell, two of my favorites from that draft aren't panning out. Derek Wolfe might be dead.
 
As for the second part, you are right. They weren't starters.They still got plenty of snaps, though. By the halfway point of this season, Collins was barely seeing the field, and when he did he was either invisible or looked like shit. 
 
I have never had a problem admitted I was wrong, and in this case, I am delighted that it looks like I was very, very wrong. If Saturday's performance is a harbinger of things to come, they've landed themselves a linebacker who can legitimately make impact plays on every down. This is very exciting.

 
We can certainly agree that Collins has gone from contributing nothing to looking like a 10 year stud  in about four weeks.  It's pretty remarkable.
 
Perhaps the most exciting thing is that he still has a ton of room for improvement: he seems physically weak out there relative to other players (he gets pushed around a lot in the running game).  A year ot two in the program and he could be a substantially better player.

 

[Saints Rest]

 
When he played safety he was only 210 pounds.

Urlacher had this claim coming out of college as well.  I see that Urlacher was 6-4 250 at the Combine, but I wonder what he was when he played Safety (although according to the interwebs, Urlacher was a hybrid MLB/SS).

 

[veritas]

 
We can certainly agree that Collins has gone from contributing nothing to looking like a 10 year stud  in about four weeks.  It's pretty remarkable.
 
Perhaps the most exciting thing is that he still has a ton of room for improvement: he seems physically weak out there relative to other players (he gets pushed around a lot in the running game).  A year ot two in the program and he could be a substantially better player.

 
He's never going to set the edge like someone like Ninkovitch or Vrabel, or blow up interior linemen like Spikes, but he doesn't have to. Belichick has historically preferred guys like that, but he's not stupid or inflexible. Collins seems like a very smart player and has incredible athleticism. Being able to cover and get to the QB are extremely valuable skills in the NFL today. The Patriots will (continue to) find ways to take advantage of those skills and limit his deficiencies.
 
As an aside, my biggest gripe with Belichick's personnel choices has always been his reluctance to use guys like Collins. As a math nerd, I always wished they had a couple of guys on defense who could make big negative plays, and the Patriots always erred on the side of guys who wouldn't do anything really bad. And that's led to years of the "bend but don't break" defenses. Statistically speaking, a defense should be ok with giving up a 20 yard run, or easy completion as long as it's as a result of increasing the odds of a tackle for loss, sack, or INT. Especially when your opponent is in their own half of the field.

 

[nothumb]

 
As an aside, my biggest gripe with Belichick's personnel choices has always been his reluctance to use guys like Collins. As a math nerd, I always wished they had a couple of guys on defense who could make big negative plays, and the Patriots always erred on the side of guys who wouldn't do anything really bad. And that's led to years of the "bend but don't break" defenses. Statistically speaking, a defense should be ok with giving up a 20 yard run, or easy completion as long as it's as a result of increasing the odds of a tackle for loss, sack, or INT. Especially when your opponent is in their own half of the field.

 
This last sentence is missing a qualifier along the lines of "increasing the odds of a TFL yadda yadda more than enough to offset the increase in big plays." Obviously if you increase the odds of a TFL, sack or INT by like 1% while giving up 5 home run plays per game, this strategy is a bust.
 
But I think you probably realize that, and on the whole I think the idea has some merit. I think the flip-side of this theorem, though, is that defenses who accept greater risk in order to reap the rewards of turnovers and big plays almost certainly increase game-to-game variance in the process. When you have a HOF QB and an excellent, consistent offense, there is certainly a point where, say, giving up 20 points every game may be better than giving up 12 points three times and 30 points twice (which would be a lower per-game average). I'm not saying that's the tradeoff - in most cases we are talking about marginal adjustments that are also highly opponent-dependent.
 
Another potential benefit of a conservative defense paired with a good offense (and it's really just another play on the theme of low variance) is that you are probably less likely to fall way behind. Falling way behind generally makes you predictable and forces you to gamble more. That's bad for anyone, but it's perhaps worse for a team that is a favorite in most of its games and that thrives on game planning, deception and execution.
 
So I'd like to have my cake and eat it to - I want a defense that limits big plays AND makes big plays of its own   But in terms of figuring out where the optimal balance of risk, variance and game planning lies, in BB I trust.

 

[crystalline]

The thing that makes me think Belixhick has thought through the high vs low risk options is the offense. There was a time when they relied on a lot of low risk passes but the past few years they takr judicious shots down the field looking to break big plays.