One thing that’s been talked about recently that didn’t really ring true to me was Jamie Collins as a cover guy on tight ends. I just didn’t remember Collins being in coverage vs. tight ends much at all this year, and he definitely was never solely manning up a tight end for an entire game.
So I went back and looked at Pro Football Focus’ coverage numbers and here’s what I came back with:
Collins was in coverage against tight ends just 15 snaps this season, while he was in coverage against running backs for 29. He had a good 1.9 coverage rating for the season, and this included plenty of snaps against wide receivers as well.
Hightower had just 7 coverage snaps against tight ends this year, and 19 against running backs. He had a team second-best (to Revis) 8.9 coverage rating, albeit with a small sample size.
In comparison, PFF has Patrick Chung in coverage on TEs for 26 snaps and Devin McCourty for 13. Chung had a solid .8 pass coverage rating for the season.
So while Collins does have some ability to cover tight ends, the Pats seem to prefer a safety to cover them. There were also games like the one against the Colts where Brandon Browner had Coby Fleener for 5 coverage snaps while Collins had him for 2.
This makes me think covering Owen Daniels is one of the more interesting tactical decisions this weekend. Is Chung up to it? Or will they use some Browner on him?
But thinking Collins will just man him up all game is not the case.
