Jamie Collins on track to perhaps have his best season yet

Jamie Collins Sr. has been positively sensational in his second go-around with the New England Patriots… could he be on his way to a career year?

If the New England Patriots defense has been the surprise star of the show through the season’s first three weeks (it has been), then Jamie Collins Sr. has been the surprise star within the star.

The versatile linebacker is everywhere on the field all at once for the Pats. Kids, if you want a lesson in how to play defense in today’s NFL, flip on New England’s Week 3 contest against the New York Jets and just keep your eye on No. 58 from whistle to whistle. It won’t be hard – Collins somehow still stands out on a defense filled to the brim with playmakers doing exciting, jaw-dropping things on the regular.

Sure, it was against the Jets and their third-string quarterback. Collins still had seven tackles, two sacks, and a stuff. Even on the rare plays he didn’t make himself or get directly involved with, he was right there usually, just steps away from flying in to do something magical and electric.

Collins’ talent has never been the issue, of course. Even as a second-round draft pick back in 2013 with New England, his physical gifts and raw athleticism quickly turned heads.

Collins – along with Seattle’s Kam Chancellor – was one of the first players to regularly be able to clear opposing lines during field goal attempts with an effortless hurdle through the air. He’d take a running start, time his jump with the snap, and more often than not somehow manage to clear all the big bodies in front of him (his own teammates and the other team’s players) en route to executing a field goal block.

Long a favorite of color commentators (NBC’s Cris Collinsworth used to gush over him during New England’s Sunday Night Football contests in 2015 and 2016), Collins eventually wore out his welcome with head coach Bill Belichick. The two came at odds over Collins’ reported variance of effort level at times during games and during the season itself; Collins also supposedly felt underutilized and underappreciated occasionally in a Patriots defense that prided itself on collective ability rather than individual talent.

And so Collins was exiled to the Cleveland Browns for a conditional 2017 third-round pick back on Halloween night in 2016. The following January, he signed a rich new four-year, $50 million contract with over half the money guaranteed up front.

Unfortunately for the Browns though (and ultimately, fortunately for Collins and the Patriots), the linebacker never quite lived up to his lofty new contract. He was good but not great over the first two years of his deal, eventually leading Cleveland to release him in March of this year.

While Collins later admitted he was surprised to learn that Belichick and the Patriots were among the first teams to come calling about his services, a reunion between the two sides was appealing to all parties involved. And so he inked a one-year deal and returned to the team that originally drafted him, and his second stint with that team has been absolutely transcendent ever since.

Collins has 19 tackles (14 of them solo), 2.5 sacks, four stuffs, three passes defended, two interceptions, and one defensive touchdown on the year so far, all through only three games of action. He’s the team’s leading tackler and – along with safety Devin McCourty – probably the team’s biggest playmaker so far on defense.

If he keeps his hot start up, he could potentially eclipse his 2015 season with the Patriots, which to date was probably his best year as a professional football player. That season he had 89 tackles (51 solo), 5.5 sacks, five forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, five stuffs, six passes defended, and one interception… and he somehow did it all in 12 games.

Those are lofty numbers to try and aspire to match or even beat, but if anyone can do it, it’s probably Collins himself this year. He’s just playing out of his mind so far, and there’s no reason to think he’ll slow down anytime soon.