Landon Collins, S, Alabama

[The Franchise]

I'm seeing a couple of mock drafts lately (Daniel Jeremiah's the latest) where they have us drafting Collins in the 1st round.

What say you? Would you be pissed? Pleased? Indifferent?

Just another Alabama football player that will fail in the NFL?

PICK NO. 18 KC
LANDON COLLINS SS ALABAMA

Andy Reid will address the receiver position in a later round, and instead picks up the top safety in the draft class.

STRENGTHS Thick safety with a no-nonsense demeanor typical of a Nick Saban-coached player. Decisive against the run. Gets high to low quickly and is all over the ball. Leverages running backs to sideline and keeps contain. A true sheriff against the run. Tracks and stalks ball carriers with patience. Hits the gas and explodes into his tackles with purpose. Feet are under him and balanced when ready to strike. Aggressive and tough with a desire to intimidate. Disciplined eyes -- is not easily moved around field by quarterbacks. Wrap-up tackler. Physical enough to match up against tight ends and has the feet to carry big, slot targets. Transitions to throws quickly in zone coverage and limits yards after catch. Finds and tracks ball and times his leaps well. Aggressive in playing the ball and disrupts the catch with his physicality. Core special-teams player.

WEAKNESSES Average hands. Dropped easy interceptions against Texas A&M and Arkansas. Looked much quicker in 2013 than he did in 2014. Can be beaten in a foot race. Average recovery speed. Sometimes shows too much confidence in recovery speed. Gets caught peeking into backfield and can be beaten over the top after a late jump. Inconsistent route recognition. Beaten for game-tying and game-winning touchdowns by Ole Miss. Shows some hip stiffness when asked to open up and run. Might be carrying too much bulk.

NFL COMPARISON Johnathan Cyprien

BOTTOM LINE Collins is a tempo-setter who can energize a defense with his downhill, aggressive style. He is at his best when he can attack rather than sit back in coverage and process. Collins' tackling, pursuit angles and speed to the sideline can help a defense shut down rushing attacks, but his inconsistencies in coverage will be tested by NFL offenses.

[Direckshun]

I would be pissed.

You're talking about a pure box safety. That's not what the Chiefs use under Sutton. Abdullah and Berry, in their time as our "box" safeties, played a ton of coverage, particularly of tight ends. And Collins notoriously struggles in coverage.

Teams are overreacting to, frankly, talent in Kam Chancellor that you can't really duplicate. They need to stick to their schemes, and with the Chiefs upcoming investment in Ron Parker, there's just no chance they burn a first rounder on a positionally-inflexible strong safety.

[saphojunkie]

Well, I would give sutton the benefit of the doubt that he can adjust to the player. It's possible his scheme doesn't necessarily call for the SS to play coverage, it's just that he was trying to use all of Berry's talents. Maximizing them.

Here's my thing about Landon Collins and Maxx Williams - if you can get the best player at his position of the draft in the bottom of the first round, that's not a failure, if it's a position of need. While the best safety or tight end might not be as valuable as the third best pass rusher, it's still not a total waste of resources.

We need to get better against the run, and that means we're going to have to get ILB, RDE, and SS taken care of.

I do think that WR and RT and OG can be addressed later in the draft, as there's great depth.

I still think the best case scenario (barring magic like Cooper or Mariota or White falling to us), is to trade down, trying to pick up an extra second or third.

There are only a handful of players I would pick at 18 if I had the chance to trade down:

Devante Parker
Amari Cooper
Kevin White

And that's it. Everyone else, I feel like there is either a comparable player available later or they have as good a chance of falling to us.

Hopefully, someone gets excited about a 3-4 OLB and we can trade down. That or we pull the trigger and move up for Mariota. ONE CAN DREAM, OKAY?!!

[Direckshun]

Safety isn't the reason we struggled against the run. Losing DeVito, starting two backup ILBs and Sutton playing us in dime virtually all the time is why.

Sutton decided that if we were going to get beat, it would be on the ground. Thus, we never gave up a 300-yarder, but the likes of CJ Anderson gashed us.

[saphojunkie]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Safety isn't the reason we struggled against the run. Losing DeVito, starting two backup ILBs and Sutton playing us in dime virtually all the time is why.

Sutton decided that if we were going to get beat, it would be on the ground. Thus, we never gave up a 300-yarder, but the likes of CJ Anderson gashed us.

Oh, we need to do something about the other positions as well, but safety has to be addressed, no?

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by saphojunkie

Oh, we need to do something about the other positions as well, but safety has to be addressed, no?

I don't think so, not if we re-sign Parker. Parker and Abdullah did their primary job to brilliant effect (thanks to Sutton's brilliant scheming), and we ended up with the #2 pass defense in the NFL even though we were starting Sean Smith, Phillip Gaines, Husain Abdullah, and Ron Parker -- all fine players, but not exactly world breakers like the Legion of Boom.

That's the #1 thing safeties gotta do. I have no idea why people are so obsessed with box safeties. We had one of the best in the game in Bernard Pollard but his vulnerability in the passing game doomed us every time. Collins is Pollard, a better athlete and tackler, but liability downfield all the same.

Dare teams to run on you. We've got possibly the best NT in the league and played four starting-caliber DEs last year (Bailey, Vickerson, Howard, and Walker all started at some points in their career). We're only losing Vickerson from that group (while getting back Catapano).

ILB is the position I'm primarily concerned about. Everybody seems to be high on DJ, which is great, but we need a longterm solution there.

We'll gashed against the run so long as we're playing dime 70% of the time, that's just the calculated move Sutton's made. Our safeties are doing EXACTLY what we need them to do. Plus we're getting Sanders Commings back to replace Kurt Coleman.

Rambling kind of answer, sorry, but there I am.

[Nightfyre]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I don't think so, not if we re-sign Parker. Parker and Abdullah did their primary job to brilliant effect (thanks to Sutton's brilliant scheming), and we ended up with the #2 pass defense in the NFL even though we were starting Sean Smith, Phillip Gaines, Husain Abdullah, and Ron Parker -- all fine players, but not exactly world breakers like the Legion of Boom.

That's the #1 thing safeties gotta do. I have no idea why people are so obsessed with box safeties. We had one of the best in the game in Bernard Pollard but his vulnerability in the passing game doomed us every time. Collins is Pollard, a better athlete and tackler, but liability downfield all the same.

Dare teams to run on you. We've got possibly the best NT in the league and played four starting-caliber DEs last year (Bailey, Vickerson, Howard, and Walker all started at some points in their career). We're only losing Vickerson from that group (while getting back Catapano).

ILB is the position I'm primarily concerned about. Everybody seems to be high on DJ, which is great, but we need a longterm solution there.

We'll gashed against the run so long as we're playing dime 70% of the time, that's just the calculated move Sutton's made. Our safeties are doing EXACTLY what we need them to do. Plus we're getting Sanders Commings back to replace Kurt Coleman.

Rambling kind of answer, sorry, but there I am.

I agree with every bit of this post except I think we should bring back Coleman instead of Parker. I also think you can find an answer to the single-high safety problem in round 3-4.

[MahiMike]

Cyprien is a beast.

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I don't think so, not if we re-sign Parker. Parker and Abdullah did their primary job to brilliant effect (thanks to Sutton's brilliant scheming), and we ended up with the #2 pass defense in the NFL even though we were starting Sean Smith, Phillip Gaines, Husain Abdullah, and Ron Parker -- all fine players, but not exactly world breakers like the Legion of Boom.

That's the #1 thing safeties gotta do. I have no idea why people are so obsessed with box safeties. We had one of the best in the game in Bernard Pollard but his vulnerability in the passing game doomed us every time. Collins is Pollard, a better athlete and tackler, but liability downfield all the same.

Dare teams to run on you. We've got possibly the best NT in the league and played four starting-caliber DEs last year (Bailey, Vickerson, Howard, and Walker all started at some points in their career). We're only losing Vickerson from that group (while getting back Catapano).

ILB is the position I'm primarily concerned about. Everybody seems to be high on DJ, which is great, but we need a longterm solution there.

We'll gashed against the run so long as we're playing dime 70% of the time, that's just the calculated move Sutton's made. Our safeties are doing EXACTLY what we need them to do. Plus we're getting Sanders Commings back to replace Kurt Coleman.

Rambling kind of answer, sorry, but there I am.

The Chiefs would be idiots not to bring Kurt Coleman back. He really seemed to start looking like his pre-injury self as the season went on. He's a very good football player that they can likely re-sign at a very good price. I'd bring him back at a couple million per long before I even entertained the idea of bringing Parker back at what he's reportedly asking.

[Saccopoo]

Originally Posted by Nightfyre

I agree with every bit of this post except I think we should bring back Coleman instead of Parker. I also think you can find an answer to the single-high safety problem in round 3-4.

[ChiefMojo]

Personally I wouldn't be against bringing back Kurt Coleman instead of Parker. Going to get Coleman for much cheaper than what Parker will be asking. We have to many other mouths to feed to be giving Parker $6 million a year.

[kccrow]

Oh, by the way, there are better safeties in this draft than Landon Collins in my humble opinion.

[OldSchool]

Originally Posted by kccrow

Oh, by the way, there are better safeties in this draft than Landon Collins in my humble opinion.

Agreed. I am very wary of Nick Saban DBs, they've mostly turned out to be shit in this league.