jamie collins

BREAKING – Patriots working to bring back LB Jamie Collins

October 5, 2021 by Tom Shaw-Mellors

David Santiago/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Image

Well, it looks as if there is a Boogeymen reunion on the cards after all. Multiple reports coming in this afternoon that the Patriots are working to re-sign Jamie Collins for a third stint with the team.

A reunion in the making: the Patriots are working towards a deal with free agent LB Jamie Collins to bring him back for his third stint with the team, per source.

Collins should be able to contribute right away given his familiarity with the system.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 5, 2021

Collins had left in free agency at the end of the 2019 season and signed a 3-year $30m deal with the Detroit Lions. However, that soon ended as he was shopped by new HC Dan Campbell for a potential trade, before being released last week.

I’m kinda neutral on this move if it’s confirmed, I don’t think the linebacker position is my biggest concern, but, Collins as Field Yates said above, Collins knows the system and has proven chemistry with Van Noy and Hightower. Not a bad addition, probably be a one-year deal also which suits the team.

What Can Patriots Expect from Jamie Collins the Second Time Around?

July 6, 2019 by Mike Dussault

Collins pictured in action (#91) in his first spell with the Patriots (Photo
by: runneralan2004, CC BY 2.0)

Jamie Collins is back with the New England Patriots and will be looking to re-write how things ended the first time around. The 29-year-old had an exciting initial three-year spell with the Patriots between 2013 and 2016, but his stay in New England came to an unexpected end.

On his way out the door, Collins was criticized for failing to stick to the gameplan and freelancing too much within the Patriots’ structured system. A simpler explanation was that Collins was just going to be too expensive for the Patriots and the team got what they could for him (third-round comp pick) and still went on to win a Super Bowl. Either way, the Pats sent him packing midway into the 2016 season.

After including that pick in a package for Brandin Cooks in 2017, the Pats then moved Cooks to the Rams, complicating the return on Collins. The ultimate result of the Collins trade? One year of Cooks, and current Patriots Deatrich Wise, Isaiah Wynn, Keion Crossen, Ryan Izzo and rookie Byron Cowart. Yes, the Pats turned Collins into a ton of value and now he’s back.

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Pats 2019 Minicamp Wrap: In It To Wynn It

June 6, 2019 by Mike Dussault

The Patriots wrapped up their mandatory minicamp on Thursday and now we embark on the six-week football void until training camp opens up.

After winning the Super Bowl for the third time in five years, this Patriots team still has much of their core still intact, but time is not on their side. That puts a spotlight into the critical spots where they are facing turnover — tight end, left tackle and wide receiver.

What have we learned about those glaring holes and everything else 2019 Pats from minicamp? Let’s break it down.

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Patriots Over Investment in Secondary Didn’t Pay Off

February 21, 2018 by Mike Dussault

I started blogging about the Patriots around the time that the old dynasty defense was dying. The 2007 defense squeezed the last bit of life out of Rodney Harrison, Tedy Bruschi, Richard Seymour, Mike Vrabel and other supporting members who helped define the Pats teams of the 2000s. Then the retirements and departures began and I realized that if Tom Brady was to ever get four or more Super Bowls, Bill Belichick would have to build him a new defense, mostly from scratch.

It was fascinating to see them emerge from the depths of the 2010 defense that needed turnovers to survive, to the 2014 and 2016 Super Bowl-winning squads that made huge key plays under the most pressing circumstances. But there’s no denying that 2017 was a step backwards. Yes, injury attrition had a lot to do with that, but it was just as much a string of missed draft picks and decisions to cut ties with the picks they did hit on.

I really don’t want to kick a dead horse, but I can’t help but need to vent about how this all unfolded over the past few seasons. How did the Patriots go from having the most promising young defense in the league in 2014 to what’s looking like another rebuild in less than three seasons? But is this even a rebuild this time around? Let’s dive in.

Why Did Pats Dump Collins, Easley and Chandler Jones Again?

November 14, 2016 by Mike Dussault

Before I get into this let me say that I think most hold Bill Belichick to an impossible standard. He’s the best coach in NFL history, but that doesn’t mean he hits on every draft pick or that every personnel decision he makes turns out right. Better than the league average? Yup. More often right than not? Yes. But he’s not perfect and I don’t expect him to be.

I know the likes of Dan Shaughnessy think that bloggers like me are nothing more than fanboys who wave pom poms and blindly think everything Belichick does is infallible. But after how the Patriots defense has looked through nine games, even I have a hard time not casting a critical eye on the moves made by Belichick since last offseason.

By themselves, getting rid of Dominique Easley, Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins could’ve been easily dismissed and swept under the rug. But collectively jettisoning first round picks from 2012 and 2014 and a second round pick from 2013 now seems even more extreme as we’re forced to watch a defense that can’t get off the field, can’t disrupt a quarterback, and looks generally lifeless when they’re supposed to be rounding into form.

Why did we rationalize getting rid of them all again? Locker room cancer and was going to want too much money and freelancing? Something like those? Well at this point I’d happily take all those “problems” back since all three had more energy and life to their game than anything we’re seeing from the Patriots defense now.

Coffin Corner: (TB)12 Thoughts about the Patriots 2nd Half

November 13, 2016 by James Conway

tom brady

1.This one is obvious, but how does the defense respond to the loss of Jamie Collins?

This is the biggest question for the rest of the season and hopefully playoffs. Can this defense, minus one of the most athletic players in Patriots history, pull together as 11 parts of a central nervous system?

If I had to pick a favorite between High and Collins, I know this seems silly now, but I’d have said Collins up to the day of the trade. Obviously, I was wrong, but it was like choosing between Cersei and Tyrion Lannister. Every human in the realm would choose Tyrion, he’s flashier and sexier, he’s droll and funny and the best part of Westros, but when the White Walkers come calling, you know Cersei is going to be stained with mud, covered in rags with blood in her mouth because she’s now surviving only on rat carcasses. She’s just a badass, who is constantly challenged, but she continues to roll up her sleeves and go back to work. High’s play in Super Bowl 49 before Malcolm Butler’s interception is perhaps the greatest play of the game, forever overshadowed by Malcolm Go (buy the mug), but one doesn’t happen without the other.

The Collins move was disciplined, smart and callous, everything that makes Belichick a great GM, getting something for a player he was increasingly viewing as a negative to team defense. But this is first time in a long time where I’m openly concerned Belichick, the biggest hater of distraction, has actually become the distraction, himself. I almost always love these types of moves by the Hoodie. Loved the Chung trade, the Moss trade, the Chandler trade, but this one, along with the distraction of the letter to Trump has me openly wondering if Belichick could lose the locker room. Not because it was to Trump just because this election was so divisive that there will surely be players in that locker room who disagree. They need to come together and maybe a road trip to the West Coast can help them get away from the cesspool of Boston sports media.

2. What does the performance of Jamie Collins and the Defense in general say about our resident Rocket Scientist?

Why Did This Patriots Defense Need a Message Sent to Them?

November 1, 2016 by Mike Dussault

Bill Belichick GIF 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.