In the months leading up to the draft, Landon Collins was often pegged as the first safety to come off the board in the first round by those that make their living guessing about where players will go in the draft.
As it turned out, however, Collins was neither the first safety selected nor a first-round pick. Collins had to wait until after the Giants traded up to the first pick of the second round to hear his name called after a wait that many feel was fueled by Collins’s profile as a box safety who would struggle in pass coverage in the NFL. Collins takes issue with that label and with his draft position.
“It bothers me, because I know that I’m not a box safety. I can play in the box, but I’m not a box safety,” Collins said, via Jenny Vrentas of TheMMQB.com. “When I started hearing that, I told the teams, ‘You can look at the film. I’m not a box safety.’ … I’m about to showcase why I’m not a box safety, and why I should have been in the first round. The Giants know they got the best safety that came out of that draft.”
Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo didn’t want to categorize Collins as a particular kind of safety, although he also pointed out that Alabama didn’t use him in coverage that much and said that the Giants would deploy him that way “if we have to use him in those situations.” That suggests Collins has some work to do in that area, but the good news is that he’ll have plenty of chances to do it in a thin Giants safety group and that proving he can will bring him an earlier chance at a payday than first-round picks who are tied to their teams with fifth-year options.
