Brandon Spikes........TRANSFORMATION?

[Urgent]

Holy Christ, thank you.

It's not like the guy is holding out.

Spikes strikes me as his own type of guy. I really like him but he's not a company man from my observations so why would he go to voluntary workouts.

Because 88 of the 90 guys on the roster did?
To show solidarity and commitment to the rest of the team?
To get some coaching as this defense evolves?
To check in on his off-season program?
To establish his position as a leader on the defense with so many young players?
To act as the QB of the defense as the MLB?
To demonstrate that he wants to be here after his contract is up?

There are lots of reasons to show up.
He is conspicuous by his absence.

The team has made a number of moves that demonstrate a willingness to improve the pass defense potentially at the expense of the run defense. Of course they would like to improve both. And many of the moves may be purely coincidental - four big DL that for independent reasons didn't fit, adding athletic edge and secondary players that are primarily third-down and passing situation specialists, drafting another MLB late, and so forth.

Spikes excels in an area where the Patriots defense excelled, and is weak at an area where the defense in total is weak.

I, among others, have argued that one weakness has been a LB corps that includes six or seven ILB's (Mayo, Spikes, Hightower, Fletcher, Rivera, TarpaKoutovidian) and no pass-defending OLB's. The addition of Collins and potentially Wilson as a third-down coverage LB offers an improvement. With Spikes deal up at the end of the season, I would prefer to see an alignment like Collins - Mayo - Hightower in the future.

The writing is on the wall for Spikes, in my opinion. Not showing up at OTA's is simply one more indicator that that writing might be in permanent sharpie rather than dry-erase marker.