I am not dismissing stats as having no meaning, I am saying without context they are meaningless. That is you can’t judge a defensive player by looking at his statistics and not watching him play.
I’m not conveniently dismissing anything I am starting the breakdown of your “he was their best defensive player because stats” falsify by starting with the most blatant, obvious flaw.
You are solely using statistics and refusing to accept all statistics are not created equal.
As to your continued attempt to rely on statistics you are wrong that he led the team in tackles for loss, in fact nink and Hightower did. So using your argument I guess if you can’t actuaklg watch the plays you assume they did run at him because they were afraid of the much greater tackle for loss risk running at HT or nink, right?
And no I don’t believe that 4 sacks and 2 Ints in a full season are eye popping.
I’m not even going to get into the silliness of judging a player on passes defenses other than to point out he only had 3.
Collins was a very effective player in 2014 but
A) He wasn’t the best player on the defense and wasn’t even in the argument and
B) judging defensive players by a stat sheet is a horrific way to evaluate them.
Your theory makes all sorts of sense on a 2-14 team with one good defender making all the tackles, it's much harder to justify that position on a team that won the Super Bowl.
Yes... in 2014 Collins
led the entire team in tackles, solo tackles, forced fumbles, defensive fumble recoveries, interceptions, linebacker passes defensed, was 3rd in tackles for a loss, 4th in total QB hits and had 4 sacks... but no, he was never in the argument for best defender.
Like that time in 2015 he was voted to the All Pro team and Pro Bowl team... those voters must have only been reading the stat sheet... or that time BB compared him to Lawrence Taylor... probably the only time he's ever made that comparison... Bill must have been reading the stats also.
Fans have a way of creating revisionist history when trying to kick a player on the way out the door, or in this case on the way back in. When the team was negotiating with Logan Mankins he slammed the organization, it was assumed he was on the way out the door, only the team continued negotiating until the zero hour before finally signing him to a lucrative deal... he went from
"All Pro Guard," to
"overrated," to
"All Pro Guard" again... all in the course of an offseason.
Listen to the opening of these highlights, Donta Hightower refers to Collins as the best defensive player on the team... but he must have been reading stats... but heck, let's watch some film and you can explain how this is not all that good.
He left and made a stink due to money, he was a real jerk in 2016.
He was always one, if not
the best defender on the team.