I heard Phil Perry on T&R this morning talking about how surprised he was at the Collins trade. After the trade he spoke with Patricia, who was very complimentary of Collins, and said that its necessary to allow players to have leeway to make split second decisions on the field.
Perry also mentioned that Collins was well-liked by teammates and that he had never heard anything negative about Collins as a teammate. This is generally consistent with what most of the local guys are saying.
Coupled with the remarks yesterday by the LB coach and many of the defensive players, I'm coming to the conclusion that this was solely a BB decision, and that there must have been some specific incident that set BB off. Because there doesn't seem to be any history of Collins having an attitude problem, and freelancer or not, he's one of the more talented guys on the defense. I don't buy that BB belives this will make the team better on the field, or that it was necessary as a business decision.
This seems personal.
I think there is an argument to be made that, depending on how one defines the terms, that, based on the two bolded parts, that statement falls into self-contradiction.
In keeping with the physics theme, talent is only a potential, so it only matters in application.
Belichick may be a mad scientist, but he's also an engineer*.
And you know what--it probably does seem a lot more like a family or whatever in Cleveland than in New England. Hugh Jackson seems like a nice guy. BB apparently walks by players in the hallway and doesn't say helllo.
Totally. To build on SD's point here--are we sure everyone's in agreement on whether or not being a family is a good or a bad thing here?
I mean, I guess it's... nice?
Seriously though--follow the implications about family and consider it in the context of the JoePos piece linked to above. Family means listening to stupid ideas because they come from family. Family means tolerating behavior that would otherwise be unacceptable simply because they are family. Family means pretending that someone isn't being a fucking idiot simply because they are family.
There might be reasons to be restrained in the articulation of harsh truths for reasons related to team cohesion, but does it's worth parsing and considering if we think Belichick: 1) does; and 2) should run the team as family.
Unless you mean, well, a certain kind of family, which brings us back to the JoePos piece.
*You like THAT
@dbn ?