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/>Skip to main contentclockmenumore-arrownoyesHorizontal - WhitePats Pulpita New England Patriots communityLog In or Sign UpLog InSign UpPatriots NewsOpinion and AnalysisContribute!About the SiteTopicsPatriotsOddsShopStubHubMoreAll 322 blogs on Horizontal - WhitePatriots News Opinion and Analysis Contribute! FanPostsFanShotsAbout the Site List of Patriots Twitter AccountsWrite For Pats Pulpit!New User Welcome and Commenting GuideCommunity GuidelinesMastheadTopics Patriots Off-Season CoveragePatriots Opinion/AnalysisPatriots NewsPatriots Draft CoverageSportfolio ManagementFiled under:NFL Free AgencyPatriots AnalysisPatriots Free Agency CoverageRe-signing linebacker Jamie Collins is a gamble worth taking for the PatriotsNew http://www.patriotslockerroom.com/authentic-steve-grogan-jersey ,52commentsRelated: What re-signing Jamie Collins means for the PatriotsEDTShareTweetShareShareRe-signing linebacker Jamie Collins is a gamble worth taking for the PatriotsPhoto by Jim Rogash/Getty ImagesThe New England Patriots brought a familiar face back into the fold on Wednesday when they re-signed linebacker Jamie Collins. The 29-year-old, of course, started his career in New England when the club made him the 52nd overall selection in the 2013 draft. Collins quickly became a defensive mainstay alongside fellow linebacker Dont’a Hightower, and was seen as one of the building blocks around which to form the unit long-term.Things did not go that way, obviously. Midway through the 2016 season, the Patriots traded Collins — then in the final year of his rookie contract — to the Cleveland Browns for a conditional 2017 third-round draft selection. New England went on to win the Super Bowl with Hightower, Kyle Van Noy and Shea McClellin as the top linebacker trio, while Collins signed a four-year, $50 million deal in Cleveland after the season.The Browns paid Collins for his potential as one of the league’s most athletic and versatile defenders. However, he failed to live up to his ceiling in a new environment that further accentuated the shortcomings that already were on display in New England: Collins remained inconsistent when it came to reading plays correctly and making appropriate decisions, and was therefore unable to properly fill the role the team had in mind for him.Cleveland envisioned its high-priced addition primarily as a strong side linebacker, as opposed to the Patriots using him more on the weak side of the formation. While the club still tried to take advantage of his versatility by moving him around the formation, Collins was simply unable to adapt and by extension do his job. He remained undisciplined and oftentimes failed to carry out his assignments, whether it came to filling gaps in the running game or dropping into the Browns’ zone coverage areas.Now, that all is the Patriots’ problem — again. However, bringing Collins back on board is still a gamble worth taking from the reigning world champions’ perspective for simple economic reasons: the one-time Pro Bowl selection will likely be a comparatively cheap addition considering that he remained on the open market for more than two months after the Browns cut him in early March. Collins’ ceiling and experience, on the other hand, are well worth the investment.More Jamie Collins storiesPhoto by Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesPatriots re-sign linebacker Jamie CollinsWhat re-signing Jamie Collins means for the PatriotsDont’a Hightower seems pretty happy that the Patriots re-signed Jamie CollinsWhen the Patriots traded Collins back in 2016, ‘freelancing’ was a term often used to describe his play and the reasoning behind New England moving on from its star linebacker. However, this freelancing has more to do with the aforementioned issues Collins had: from carrying out his assignments, to reacting properly to the play development. In October 2016, the team had seen enough from a player it probably would have lost in free agency anyway after the season.Collins’ issues did not go away in Cleveland — quite the opposite given how the team used him — but in the same sense his strengths also still exist. For the Patriots, it is now about harnessing them in order to turn him into the playmaker he was between his 2013 rookie season and his 2015 Pro Bowl campaign. How they will try to do that remains to be seen at this point in time, but the team’s overall depth at linebacker might help.After all, New England is currently pretty deep at the position. Hightower and Van Noy are the one-two punch, and are coming off an outstanding performance in the Super Bowl. Behind them are Elandon Roberts, who produced his finest season to date in 2018, and Ja’Whaun Bentley. The rookie showed plenty of promise last year before his season was cut short three games in due to a biceps injury. Fully recovered, Bentley should be seen as a roster lock to receive considerable playing time again.This mix of veteran depth and developmental upside puts Collins in an interesting spot: as opposed to his first tenure with the Patriots Youth Sony Michel Jerseys , he no longer needs to be ‘the man’ alongside defensive on-field signal caller Hightower. Instead, he is one of many options in a rather deep group (one that also includes 2018 sixth-round pick Christian Sam, former practice squad linebacker Calvin Munson, and undrafted rookie Terez Hall).In turn, this might allow the team to use Collins in a more specific role tailored to his strengths and athletic skill set. How could such a role look like? Considering his abilities when it comes to rushing the passer and operating in space, the Patriots could opt to employ Collins as more of a passing-down specialist as opposed to a three-down linebacker: playing on the weak side of the formation again and off the line of scrimmage, while also attacking downhill as a pass rusher.Using Collins in such a simplified way might take some pressure off him and return him to the player he was before 2016: a versatile playmaker. While the next few weeks and months will tell how Collins’ second stint in New England will go, bringing him in on what is expected to be a comparatively cheap, prove-it-type deal is certainly no mistake. A team can never have enough depth, after all, and Collins could be just that for the 2019 Patriots — and maybe even more. If there is one golden thread running through the NFL season, it is change. This is most prominently displayed when it comes to personnel: whether it is because of performance, specific matchups or injuries, no 53-man roster in the league stays the same for a prolonged period of time. And while the New England Patriots were fortunate when it comes to team health so far, they still saw plenty of changes to their squad.Since cutdown day in early September, the team made almost 80 transactions impacting both the active roster and the practice squad. Not all of of the players added through in-season moves are still with the club, but those that are are currently preparing to play in the biggest game of their season — and in many cases, their career leading up to this point. One of those players is tight end Stephen Anderson.After starting his career with the Houston Texans, Anderson was released by the club in early September and found his way to the Patriots’ practice squad shortly afterwards. The move to New England, however, was not that easy as he told Pats Pulpit earlier this week. “It was a tough transition to go from playing that much to go to the practice squad to not playing at all and having to do extra workouts and practice squad reps and stuff like that.”Anderson appeared in 30 games for Houston before his release and despite the circumstances of the team going through multiple quarterbacks, at least was regularly usedon both offense and special teams. However, he pointed out that he quickly realized that getting let go and subsequently getting picked up by the Patriots was in hindsight the best-case-scenario for the former undrafted rookie free agent.“I feel like it was really a blessing in disguise,” the 26-year old said. “There would really not be any other situation to get that much work in and get those reps in and be able to work different situations. I came with the approach ‘I’m just coming to work, just trying to get better, improve on something little every day’ — and I think I did well for myself, got scout team player of the week a couple of times.”“Even though I haven’t played up to this point, the team bringing me up for the playoffs and having me even eligible to play is a major compliment on the work that I’ve put in. Overall, I’m happy Sony Michel Jerseys Stitched , it’s a big week. I’m just enjoying this whole process and making memories really,” continued Anderson. Him getting promoted from the practice squad to the active roster on January 8 was the latest in a series of in-season moves made by the Patriots this year.One that was made early during the season was adding edge defender John Simon, who remained unsigned for almost four weeks after getting released by the Indianapolis Colts. “It felt great to join a team that’s been very successful for probably longer than anyone and has had a good stretch and knows how to come in to work and be professional,” Simon said. “It was really exciting when I got the phone call.”“It felt really good, because I got a chance to play,” said another defender picked up by the Patriots during the year: Ufomba Kamalu, a former teammate of Anderson’s in Houston. Kamalu went from the Texans to the Arizona Cardinals to the Patriots in only two months but the biggest change for him personally had little to do with learning different playbooks or the like: “It is pretty warm in Arizona and coming to that pretty cold weather was probably the biggest change.”As for the rest of transition, the 26-year old credited some of his fellow defenders for helping him with the move. “Guys like Derek Rivers, Deatrich Wise and Trey Flowers were all really helpful. They helped me learn the playbook, helped me find a place to stay,” said Kamalu, who appeared in two games since joining the Patriots but has been a healthy scratch for the team’s two previous playoff games.Kamalu touched on something that other in-season acquisition also mentioned: getting help from their new teammates to get acclimated to a new environment and up to speed as quickly as possible. For special teams ace Brandon King, he himself one of the more experienced players on New England’s roster now despite being only 25-years old, helping incoming players is a natural move.“You’re only as good as your weakest link, so for us we’re really proactive with getting everybody on the same page,” King said. “If one person is a little shaky at something they might not play to their full potential. With us being with these guys a lot and being able to have some carryover from the things that we do year after year, it’s a little bit easier to talk to guys that might not be so familiar with it and break it down to a point where they can understand it in a way the coaches see it.”“Still to this day I don’t have all the answers, I still get corrected all the time by Matthew Slater and Nate Ebner and vice versa,” the four-year veteran continued. “But we’re all on the same team, we’re working for a common goal and we’ve been blessed for a long time now. We’re just trying to keep improving and take this thing out the right way. It’s been a long time from the first time we met.”For Anderson this support came from fellow tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Dwayne Allen. “Rob and Dwayne, they’re vets, they’ve been there, they’ve seen a lot, they’ve had a lot of success,” he said. “They have helped me in terms of the approach I like to take every single day. Dwayne has really helped me with blocking, Rob has really helped me with just full concepts. They have helped me get better and encouraged me that I will keep moving and keep pushing. Those have been the two most influential figures for me.”John Simon also pointed out how the team — its coaches and players — helped him get up to speed in New England. “I think they helped me transition very well, welcomed me into the family very quickly and helped make it a little smoother than it probably would be for most teams. And then the defense had some similarities to when I played in Houston, so that was another thing that made the transition pretty smooth.”This smoothness of Simon’s move to the Patriots is also illustrated in the fact that he is now a core member of the team’s rotation at the defensive edge: he appeared in 13 games since joining the club and registered a pair of sacks while playing around a third of both New England’s snaps on defense and in the kicking game. Speaking of which: special teams has had some big in-season moves as well through the signings of Albert McClellan and Ramon Humber.“It wasn’t really hard to come back here,” said Humber Trey Flowers Jersey , who has been with the Patriots before: the team added him as a free agent in March 2016 but let him go again half a year later. Still, his previous experience with the club is valuable when it comes to getting up to speed. “I’ve been here before, knew the facility, knew the area, and just knew how things are run. The fact that I was able to come back to a situation I’m familiar with makes it easier.”“It was a great feeling, knowing that that’s a team I’ve been with and I’m familiar with,” he continued about his thoughts when the phone rang and it was the Patriots on the other end of the line. Humber, who started the season with the Buffalo Bills, but joined New England in mid-November has quickly adapted to his new home and is now a core member of the team’s special teams units.Another player to help the Patriots tremendously in the kicking game, and one that was actually ranked as Pro Football Focus’ top special teamer during the regular season, is Albert McClellan. Unlike Humber, however, he only knew Foxboro from a visiting player’s perspective: spending the first 8.5 years of his career with the Baltimore Ravens, McClellan was a stranger to the club and had to undergo a transition similar to those of John Simon or Ufomba Kamalu.And as the two fellow defenders said, McClellan also credited his teammates with helping him get used to being a Patriot. “I would give most of the credit to the guys on the team, those guys welcomed me to the locker room pretty quickly and allowed me to be myself and everybody to be themselves and everybody basically gelled together which made the move a lot easier,” said the 32-year old.“Another guy that also helped out a lot was team chaplain Jack Easterby, just talking with him day-in and day-out made it a little bit easier. It’s hard leaving your family and moving to a different city, a different state to come to a team in the middle of the year,” McClellan continued. “That most definitely made things a lot easier and a lot smoother. And then, basically just keeping my mind on football. A lot of the guys, we talk football a lot but at the same time it’s not demanding but more voluntarily.”For McClellan one other thing helped: the Patriots’ desire to win. “Just being around people that want to win helps things move a lot smoother,” he said. Now, he has the chance to add one final win — despite his season, just like those of New England’s other in-season acquisitions — taking unexpected turns.