Did The Falcons Make a Mistake in Drafting Jalen Collins?

/ Falcons / By /

 

Many people have jumped to the conclusion that Jalen Collins might not turn out to be the football player fans envisioned. Having a first-round grade, the Falcons decided to take him in the second-round of the 2015 NFL Draft. It is way too early to give up on Collins, as he has never played a legitimate NFL down in the regular season. Many believe he would be a shoe-in starter, but he looks like he might lose the nickel cornerback job to Philip Adams. Of course the NFL season has yet to begin, but is it too early to consider Jalen Collins a bust?

If Falcons fans have been following training camp, they have seen that many have reported Collins has struggled throughout. Don’t believe them? Go watch the first two preseason games Atlanta has played and you will see how lost he looks in coverage. Take a look at this play tweeted by the organization over a week ago.

Now even though no one is perfect as a player and rookies will make their mistakes, Collins has made numerous. He is shown being absolutely abused by a 4th string wide receiver for the Falcons.  He had a couple of missed tackles against the Jets on Friday night, and gave up a pass to Brandon Marshall that allowed him extra yards after the catch.

Jalen Collins will deal with growing pains while transitioning to the NFL, but this looks like it could be a lot more than that. He is a lot more inexperienced then other rookies as he only started 10 games in his three-year stint at LSU. Standing at 6’1” and weighing a little over 200 pounds, he can matchup size-wise with any receiver in the NFL. Dan Quinn and Richard Smith helped choose to select him because they feel that his talent overshadows his inexperience. However, he seems more like a slow blundering fool out on the field now rather than a legitimate NFL talent.

Collins missed OTA’s, and that definitely put him behind everyone else. Anyone who believes Collins has not had a bad start to his very short NFL career is mistaken, as it is very obvious. Atlanta could have shied away from the cornerback and instead taken other talented players that were on the board in round two. But they stuck with Collins, and the Falcons believed he would add a physicality to the cornerback position. Give him time to see how he does when the games matter. It is a fair question to ask if Collins was the right or wrong pick. He has all the talent in the world, but can he put it all together? It is just a matter of time before Falcons fans find out what Collins is really made of, but if he does not see a lot of the field in year one, it will not be the ideal start to Collins’s NFL career.

 

Scroll to Top
%d bloggers like this: