Spikes' Camp: LB's Move to IR "Was Not a Mutual Decision"

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Spikes' Camp: LB's Move to IR "Was Not a Mutual Decision"
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There's been plenty of talk regarding Brandon Spikes and his surprising placement on injured reserve last week as he continued fighting through a knee injury, but now we know for sure that he didn't go out on his own terms....

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[RhodyPatriot]

Why should it be a mutual decision. Spikes is a punk who did not show up for practice at all on the snowy day in question.

 

[supafly]

Despite the opinion of a very good poster considering it a "conspiracy theory," you didn't need to be a genius to realize that the decision to place Spikes on IR had some very strange aspects to it.

There was no attempt to hold him out of the week #17 game vs BUF, and all reports stated weeks prior that he would be able to get through the rest of the season with treatment and rest, which meant that Spikes would benefit greatly from the bye week.

If Belichick wanted to, he very well could have chosen to keep him on the roster for 2 missed games (IND, DEN), so that he'd have a full 5+ weeks rest should we make it to the Super Bowl--and that was in a worst case scenario.

I think the writing was on the wall that this was not a case of him being too injured, and that our better coverage LB's were probably going to see the heavy bulk of the reps anyway.

 

[supafly]

Why should it be a mutual decision. Spikes is a punk who did not show up for practice at all on the snowy day in question.

And yet that didn't stop him from being glued to social media/twitter, by posting 2 updates at 7:04 and 7:14am that he couldn't get out of his driveway...complete with high def pictures as "proof."

Kind of a no-brainer to think that he could have reasonably shoveled out the back of his driveway without much problem during that 10 min span. He is a professional athlete with a strong build, who likely could have quickly finished the task of shoveling. One would assume that is what everyone else chose to do.

 

[RayClay]

What drama.

So people watched Jamie Collins compared to a guy that can hardly walk and it's a conspiracy the IR'd Spikes?

 

[pdangle]

Like, ummm, no duh.

 

[supafly]

What drama.

So people watched Jamie Collins compared to a guy that can hardly walk and it's a conspiracy the IR'd Spikes?

And yet, they somehow chose to keep playing Spikes all through the important regular season games where we were trying to earn a bye without one inactive, only to then IR him once he actually had a 2 week period of rest in front of him?

Again...the recovery process required rest. It didn't make any sense that once that rest period finally came, they then decided to IR him. If Belichick wanted to, he could have allowed him rest for a full 5+ week period, and possibly even more down the stretch of the regular season.

What's even stranger is that he was obviously well enough to practice all week prior to not showing up, so apparently his injury was not quite what you're making it out to be in terms of "hardly being able to walk."

 

[RayClay]

And yet, they somehow chose to keep playing Spikes all through the important regular season games where we were trying to earn a bye without one inactive, only to then IR him once he actually had a 2 week period of rest in front of him?

Again...the recovery process required rest. It didn't make any sense that once that rest period finally came, they then decided to IR him. If Belichick wanted to, he could have allowed him rest for a full 5+ week period, and possibly even more down the stretch of the regular season.

What's even stranger is that he was obviously well enough to practice all week prior to not showing up, so apparently his injury was not quite what you're making it out to be in terms of "hardly being able to walk."

Collins is a rookie and Spikes was able to help. Once Collins was ready (is someone going to say he wasn't ready, we should have played a crippled Spikes Saturday instead) and Spikes had a setback, Spikes was gone.

Belichick only cares about winning football games. Someone make the case that Collins should have sat in favor of Spikes.

 

[supafly]

Collins is a rookie and Spikes was able to help. Once Collins was ready (is someone going to say he wasn't ready, we should have played a crippled Spikes Saturday instead) and Spikes had a setback, Spikes was gone.

Belichick only cares about winning football games. Someone make the case that Collins should have sat in favor of Spikes.

While I'm not doubting anything that you say about Collins, the million dollar question would be: why "now" in terms of Collins being ready as opposed to any other point?

And possibly more importantly--you're going to dispute these reports from Spikes' agent himself, along with Curran's that state that Spikes never showed up? You honestly don't believe that had anything to do with it?

 

[Deus Irae]

While I'm not doubting anything that you say about Collins, the million dollar question would be: why "now" in terms of Collins being ready as opposed to any other point?

And possibly more importantly--you're going to dispute these reports from Spikes' agent himself, along with Curran's that state that Spikes never showed up? You honestly don't believe that had anything to do with it?

Likely (IMO):

Collins wasn't/isn't ready.
Collins is still not likely to be worse in coverage than Spikes, and his athleticism might help him make up for some mistakes while there's still not a lot of film on him.
Spikes looked extremely limited in that bad weather.
2 weeks wasn't going to be enough time for Spikes to heal.
Tardiness/absence may, or may not have been a factor, but I find that more important when looking towards any possible re-signing than this season.



The only question I hate is why they didn't just make Spikes inactive, in order to potentially have him available as needed if the team makes the SB. Maybe they worried that he wouldn't be in good shape after the layoff, as we've seen that from him in the past. Maybe they'd had enough. I'd love to have the answer to that, because it would help me frame my perspective on the position as the team heads into the offseason, whenever that happens.

 

[RayClay]

While I'm not doubting anything that you say about Collins, the million dollar question would be: why "now" in terms of Collins being ready as opposed to any other point?

And possibly more importantly--you're going to dispute these reports from Spikes' agent himself, along with Curran's that state that Spikes never showed up? You honestly don't believe that had anything to do with it?

Collins was getting better in practice, Spikes was getting less mobile.

I hate to use the overused Occham's razor but, that allowed them to free up Collins and use Spikes spot to get LB Davis to replace Collins on STs.

If you believe that Belichick is trying to put the best team on the field that makes sense. If you believe something else well...

 

[doesntmatter1]

I like Spikes, but he is a liability at times. Also, his run defense wasn't that great this year with him shooting the wrong gaps and his up the gut blitzes that were often stonewalled. Between his injuries and the loss of Mayo and Wilfork, I hope this down year doesn't prevent him from getting a good contract that is most likely with a new team.

 

[RayClay]

I like Spikes, but he is a liability at times. Also, his run defense wasn't that great this year with him shooting the wrong gaps and his up the gut blitzes that were often stonewalled. Between his injuries and the loss of Mayo and Wilfork, I hope this down year doesn't prevent him from getting a good contract that is most likely with a new team.

I'm a Spikes fan too and admire his guts. Fresh LB on teams and Collins unleashed is our best option IMO.

ESPN writers will concoct all sorts of sinister plots if you read their crap.

 

[supafly]

If you believe that Belichick is trying to put the best team on the field that makes sense. If you believe something else well...

Obviously, I agree with this in terms of putting the best team on the field, but my initial reaction in the other thread from last week was the questioning why Spikes wouldn't at least be effective in:

--short yardage, obvious running, goal line situations, physicality, leadership, etc

--why Belichick would not have had him miss 2 games with the thought of having a 5 week rest period, should we be fortunate enough to make the SB



You are acting as if Spikes was so hobbled that he couldn't even walk, yet he practiced just fine last week prior to the snow day. Mankins didn't practice, Dennard didn't practice---and they still played. Yet the thinking is somehow that Spikes was so hobbled that he still was able to practice, and that he was just hanging by a thread? He hadn't even really had his injury managed all that much down the stretch from when it was first reported.. Had that been the case, I would be more inclined to agree with you.

When it's been reported by more than one source that he didn't even show up yet was able to send muliple twitter updates regarding his decision not to shovel his driveway, and then his agent himself states that it wasn't mutual, I'm not sure why it'd be so controversial to think that this may have been the straw to break the camel's back.

I suppose it just comes down to what your specific thoughts/opinion is regarding the situation, and we seem to have a somewhat different belief in our opinions.

 

[supafly]

ESPN writers will concoct all sorts of sinister plots if you read their crap.

Except these reports about him not showing up to practice are from Tom Curran. The latest reports are from his agent himself.

I agree with you about not buying into the ESPN report, but there is other writing on the wall here too.

It's quite possible that it was a combination of the injury along with other circumstances, which is what I personally believe. I do feel that he'd have played through the playoffs had one of these situations been removed, however.

 

[RayClay]

Except these reports about him not showing up to practice are from Tom Curran. The latest reports are from his agent himself.

I agree with you about not buying into the ESPN report, but there is other writing on the wall here too.

It's quite possible that it was a combination of the injury along with other circumstances, which is what I personally believe. I do feel that he'd have played through the playoffs had one of these situations been removed, however.

He has a torn ligament in his knee. His car was stuck in the snow. Probably not a great idea to do a lot of shoveling with his knee.

So you're saying Belichick IRed him as punishment and by dumb luck took an increasingly immobile LB who collapsed on the sideline in a recent game trying to make a routine tackle off the field, and inserted a guy who probably played the best game at linebacker this year, at least in terms of athletics.

As they say, rather be lucky than good.

So, do you think they should have sat Collins in favor of Spikes, or had Collins start and play lots of snaps and all the special teams and carry Spikes on the bench?

In my opinion, our linebacker corps is much better with Collins and hightower moved over than previously. There's a lot to learn and they probably pushed Collins til they were confident over the bye.

 

[MassPats38]

These reports say nothing other than Spikes didn't want IR. From his agent, what would you expect - I don't want to play in the big games and want IR? The agent addressed a specific concern that he was IR'd as some accord. The rest is really vanilla IR, as it is a management decision, not a player decision. How capable are you in your degraded physical state?

It's not clear if he hurt his knee more in practice (see Tommy Kelly, before going IR) or he was simply too limited. This is weird because of unconfirmed reports and a tweet. If that wasn't present, it would be the Kelly response of hurt too bad - IR.

Like it or not, BB offered limited punishment (day, quarter, etc.) for players not toeing the line. The notion that BB would IR a valuable piece of the defense if serviceable before the playoffs as some Mutiny on the Bounty response to showing up late is plain silly.

 

[supafly]

He has a torn ligament in his knee. His car was stuck in the snow. Probably not a great idea to do a lot of shoveling with his knee.

Belichick expects you to be at practice no matter what the circumstances are. Aqib Talib chose to stay at the hotel at Patriot Place, so that he didn't need to worry about such problems.

Spikes makes millions of dollars. He could have chosen to make any one of a number of better decisions to get to practice. Money goes a long way. I guarantee you that many people in the Boston area did not miss work, and they have less resources, make way less money, and have less of an incentive to get to work than Spikes did.

He could have paid someone 1,000 dollars to shovel the driveway, got up 30 min earlier and taken a cab, arranged for a ride from a friend, etc, etc, etc....

So, do you think they should have sat Collins in favor of Spikes, or had Collins start and play lots of snaps and all the special teams and carry Spikes on the bench?

We've seen plenty of players who have bit roles on the team before, particularly at the position of LB. He could have had his snaps managed or lessened. Most importantly, even if he did have a partial tear (which is pretty broad for a knee), he could have simply missed a playoff game and automatically rested 3 weeks from the end of week 17, or he could have been rested for the last regular season game in hopes of getting better.
Nothing in the world suggests that Spikes was struggling that badly to even miss practice. As I stated, the injury situations with Dennard, McCourty, Mankins, etc were all managed properly during the bye week---yet Spikes did not even miss practice.

You keep stating how bad his knee was, yet it goes against all logical thinking to assume that Belichick was not managing it for a postseason run the same way that he normally does with many other players.

 

[supafly]

Like it or not, BB offered limited punishment (day, quarter, etc.) for players not toeing the line. The notion that BB would IR a valuable piece of the defense if serviceable before the playoffs as some Mutiny on the Bounty response to showing up late is plain silly.

I don't see many suggesting that.

The suggestion is that it may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, and gone into the factor that he was already more limited by being hurt. We already know that Spikes had issues in the past with attitude, twitter comments, injuries, and making the wrong decisions. The notion that he may have pushed the envelope too far shouldn't be some kind of shock to anyone.

Again...if you take either one of these factors out of the equation, it's quite possible that Spikes may have continued to play throughout the postseason.

I find it awfully strange that a player who was supposedly so insanely hobbled wasn't being held out of practice on a regular basis, nor did he even miss practice or a game during the final days while he was here.

And again, it begs the question to be answered as to if he didn't need surgery and simply needed rest, (which was reported as early as 3 weeks ago), why wasn't he considered "important" enough for Belichick to keep him and allow him to rest for 5 weeks (longer than the time it took for Gronk's MCL tear to heal) so that he'd be able to be used in the SB, just the same as Belichick has done with Gronk himself in 2011, Dobson this year, etc? It's awfully weird that Spikes went from someone who people were freaking out about losing just a week ago, to suddenly having posters comment that "it's more than obvious that the rookie Collins was 'ready' ."

 

[ATippett56]

After this roster transaction and the subsequent fallout, I don't expect Spikes to be back with the New England Patriots next season. With that said, I hope the New England Patriots re-sign Fletcher next season, so at least the New England Patriots will have a backup linebacker who can play the dime linebacker role, in case of injury.