New England Patriots: 5 Key moments in the 2016 Season

3) Jamie Collins Traded

So much for the hopes of a calm and relaxing bye week. Bill Belichick was working the trade machine throughout October, bringing in Kyle Van Noy to a linebackers group that seemingly had plenty of numbers. The best way to address that glut of linebackers was to take one out of the equation and it was one of the budding superstars in Jamie Collins that was shipped out for a low price.

It brought out the fun part of the Boston sports media with some making their usual claims that Bill Belichick was losing his mind and making a questionable decision that was going to mess up the team’s Super Bowl hopes.

On the other side, there were plenty of questions about Collins’ work ethic and commitment to the team, with Michael Lombardi leading that charge. While nobody will know for certain what made this trade happen, it did and everybody had their chance to voice their opinion.

From there, the defense suffered an embarrassing beating at the hands of Russell Wilson before seemingly turning a corner and finding ways to make bad offenses look bad, which is a step up over some other seasons where Tyler Thigpen was posting Drew Brees level numbers.