Chiefs Free Agent Focus: Safety Landon Collins

Chiefs Free Agent Focus:

Safety Landon Collins

by Paul Pulley | February 19, 2019

The Kansas City Chiefs defensive secondary was one of the worst in the NFL in 2018. Even though there are players on the team that had decent seasons, as a whole, the unit stunk. When it was needed most, the inability to slow down an opponents offense, let alone bring them to a stop, led to the demise of the defensive coordinator and a total revamping of the defensive coaching staff.

As new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo reviews film, he isn’t going to see much that inspires confidence moving forward. When watching the safeties, he’s going to see a lot of players out of position, slow to react, late to the ball, taking bad angles and guys missing tackles. He’s also going to see a lot of players watching teammates make tackles, gang tackling was just not in the 2018 Chiefs vocabulary. The Chiefs have a number of safeties on the roster for 2019. The problem is… that’s what we have. There is one, who was once a great player, who is way over-paid and can’t stay healthy enough to stay on the field. We have several sub-par players that wouldn’t be on a team that had a good defense and then we have a couple of young guys that have shown promise. House cleaning at the safety position could go a long way in ridding the Chiefs of some bad contracts, creating a little cap space in doing so, and improving one of the weakest positions on the team.

One of ArrowheadOne’s most prolific commenters — berttheclock — has mentioned numerous times how Seattle’s “Legion of Boom” suffered greatly when their safeties were unable to play, leaving the cornerbacks exposed, weakening the secondary. This has been one of the Chiefs problems the last two seasons. The safety play is so poor that at times it looks as if the Chiefs only have 9 guys on defense. This has led to not only poor play against the passing game, but has also weakened the run defense. To be clear, the Safety is helpful against the pass and well as against the run. Is it any coincidence that the Chiefs run defense has soured over the past two seasons without a healthy Eric Berry?

An Introduction to Landon Collins

This is where I propose the Chiefs bring in Safety Landon Collins. Collins was selected with the very first pick of the 2nd round of the 2015 draft, number 33 overall, by the New York Giants. Collins played collegiately at Alabama and was part of the 2012 National Championship team. He played mostly special teams his Freshman year, but took over a starting safety position his Sophomore and Junior seasons. Landon proved to be a very prolific tackler and showed good ball skills with 5 interceptions his final two seasons. Collins entered the NFL draft after his Junior year.

The Chiefs new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was the Giants DC for the first three seasons of Collins career. He’s shown his versatility by starting his career playing as the Giants Free Safety and since has been playing as Strong Safety. He has proven to be just as prolific a tackler in the NFL, recording over 100 tackles in each of his first three seasons. In 2018, Collins recorded 96 tackles in 12 games, missing the final 4 games of the season after being placed on IR after having surgery due to suffering a partially torn rotator cuff in week 13. He’s has also demonstrated solid ball skills with 8 career interceptions.