12/21/24
October 31, 2016
Patriots Trade Jamie Collins to Browns for 3rd Round Pick: On Sunday, Pro Bowl linebacker Jamie Collins played for the 6-1 New England Patriots and wanted "Von Miller money" when his contract expired at the end of the season. Now he's playing for the 0-8 Cleveland Browns after being traded for a compensatory third round draft pick and is much more likely to have a franchise tag slapped on him. The Hoodie can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop ... ever, until you are dealt!
Chandler Jones got lucky. Richard Seymour did not. Neither has Jamie Collins.
There are no guarantees that you'll go to a good team. Just that you'll go.
We'll have to see where this latest move falls on the Lawyer Milloy scale. The Pats have overplayed their hand in this department before, parting company with too much talent (and intangibles) at the wrong moment and then paying a price down the road.
Doing the trade math, a Browns third rounder is roughly equivalent to a Pats second rounder. The Pats will be picking at the back end of Round 2 and the Browns at the top of Round 3. Perhaps just 2 or 3 picks separating the two slots, and then you can pay the third rounder less.
Good luck to the Browns convincing Collins that he ought to remain in Cleveland after his current deal is up at the end of the season. It will take an Egyptian pyramid of cash.
I think that Belichick values maintaining a continuum of high level competitiveness above all else. He'd rather win fewer championships and remain in the hunt all the time than break the bank for a narrow window one time event like Tampa Bay did. So he willingly ditches Collins knowing that it may lessen his chances of hoisting the trophy in the near term.
I'm waiting for Belichick to lose his mind and put together a Ditka all-for-one bundle so he can take Jabrill Peppers off the top of the board whenever Peppers decides to declare for the draft.
posted by beaverboard at 04:08 PM on October 31, 2016
he might have gotten paid by New England
Don't know enough about the player, but ... The Patriots organization doesn't ever yield to any player no matter how good they have performed for their team or what their perceived value is. Any player who wishes to be paid their market value is dispatched very quickly and reinforces the mindset that the organization, and not the players, are why they remain competitive year after year.
posted by cixelsyd at 12:29 AM on November 01, 2016
The corner stones being that Brady has quietly signed for less than market value every time his contract gets redone, and that he and Belichick have established this extraordinary tenure. And it's not like the Pats don't have the cap room to work with. They are sitting on a goodly amount of cushion.
Sometimes they will pay players. They paid Richard Seymour pretty well - before trading him away. The key to that trade may have been how much the Raiders were willing to give up to get him. Which was more than a prudent front office would have given up.
Some chit chat suggests that the Collins deal was partially a cold water shot to the defense as a whole to wake that unit up. They don't need to wake up McCourty. He was laying the lumber to people on nearly a league office review basis last Sunday. I thought he looked like Aqib Talib's angry cousin out there.
Well, in New England, we are now done with Rex Ryan for the year, at least on a divisional basis. We needed something new to talk about. This trade gets us from Halloween to the election. After that, we'll need something else. Manziel or Tebow maybe. Or Harbaugh (at this point, there is really only one Harbaugh in the world of the imagination).
posted by beaverboard at 08:45 AM on November 01, 2016
Doing the trade math, a Browns third rounder is roughly equivalent to a Pats second rounder. The Pats will be picking at the back end of Round 2 and the Browns at the top of Round 3. Perhaps just 2 or 3 picks separating the two slots, and then you can pay the third rounder less.
It's a compensatory pick, and it's conditional to the Browns actually getting one, so it'll either be at the end of R3 or (if the Browns don't get it) it'll be the Browns' fourth-round pick.
posted by Etrigan at 10:00 AM on November 01, 2016
I had noticed that after posting previously, and I think it's the Browns' fourth round pick in 2018 rather than 2017, which led to more wondering as to why the Pats didn't just keep Collins for now, since if he walks in March, the Pats stand to get a compensatory third rounder in 2018 anyway.
Apparently, deeper diving on the finer details of that whole realm would shed more light on Belichick's reasoning. I decided to leave the diving to others.
Based on how well the Pats have done getting good trade value for key players in the past, it's surprising how little they got in return for Collins. Getting him gone ASAP (and ideally outside the division) must have been the primary objective.
posted by beaverboard at 10:53 AM on November 01, 2016
If Collins could have proven he's worth Von Miller money, he might have gotten paid by New England. Earlier in the season, when Hightower was out, Collins wasn't performing all that well on a consistent basis. Now that he is teamed with Hightower, he looks better. Problem is Patriots have to pay them both, as well as a number of other people, and there just isn't cap room. Elandon Roberts had done well filling in for Hightower, but is a bit nicked up. Patriots can do nicely using Roberts instead of Collins for the balance of this season, then use the compensatory pick for someone of equal or better value than Collins. Just think of New England as "Football, Incorporated".