The Browns Signing Jamie Collins to the Highest Deal Ever for an Inside Linebacker is Typical Browns
The contract extension for #Browns LB Jamie Collins: 4 years, $50M, source said. $26M in guarantees. Large.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 23, 2017
Jamie Collins gets paid more than Luke Kuechley after Patriots D got better without him pic.twitter.com/ylmr6w2Nbb
— Jerry Thornton (@jerrythornton1) January 24, 2017
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First of all, good for Jamie Collins. Any capitalist worth his copy of “The Wealth of Nations” should be happy any time someone cashes in in a free market. Of course this the Browns we’re talking about, so there’s an element here of sitting in the church watching your friend marry an ugly, soul-crushing succubus who’ll make his life miserable. But some guys put money ahead of winning, and I respect Collins’ right to do that. So my beef isn’t with Collins, This is all about a gawdawful franchise once again doing gawdawful franchise things.
Not since the Jets paid a 30-year-old Darrelle Revis $39 million guaranteed has the difference between how winners and losers do business been so perfectly captured. Bill Belichick had Jamie Collins. Collins was a sometimes spectacular but inconsistent player. Freakishly athletic but would disappear for long stretches or have unforgivable lapses like the AFC title game in Denver when a plowhorse like Owen Daniels blew by him like American Pharaoh for two scores.
So Belichick dumped him, midseason. Flat out dumped him. Basically traded him for a handful of pizza coupons. The same compensation he would have gotten if he’d just let him play out the string and leave as a free agent. Because Belichick knew he’d be better off with the way less athletic but more reliable Elandon Roberts and Shea McClellin or trade for a Kyle Van Noy. And he was right. The defense made a marked improvement with a rotation of role players. Guys who perhaps were not going along with the program watched their most physically gifted defender get sent to the purgatory that is Cleveland and took it as an example of what happens to freelancers in Foxboro. So they started to straighten up and fly right. And led the league in scoring defense.
Meanwhile, the Browns make the classic mistake of the bad team: Believing in a savior. Thinking one star will make a difference and lead them to respectability. The Browns need help across the board. But it’ll be that much harder to get now because you’re swallowing a massive cap hit on one position. And God forbid Collins gets hurt or just doesn’t play well. And even if you love Collins, in no sane universe is he worth more than (a healthy) Luke Kuechly. And that’s something I was saying when he was still with the Patriots. Cap management is a zero sum game. If you’re going to eat up that much space one one guy, he’d better be a difference maker. Someone teams have to gameplan for and he’ll still defeat the gameplan. No rational football person can think he’s that.
Again, that’s something Belichick understands. And it’s how he’s built an empire. Give him a team filled with Shea McClellins and he’ll beat your all-Jamie Collins team. (And don’t think for a second he didn’t have McClellin jump the snapper in that Ravens game to make that point.) Because as that great football mind Genghis Khan said “An army of sheep led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.” But of all the Cleveland Browns in the world, they’re the Cleveland Browniest.