New York Giants: How does Landon Collins fit?

The second round of the 2015 NFL Draft started off with a bang, as the New York Giants traded up to the first pick of day two in order to draft Alabama’s Landon Collins. Out of all the picks the Giants made during the draft, selecting the hard-working Collins might have been the best.

Collins, projected by many to be a first-round talent, is coming to New York with an enormous chip on his shoulder, and that should bode very well for the Giants.

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Coming from Alabama where he was under the tutelage of Nick Saban, it’s a given that Collins is a hard worker who will do the little things to make sure his team is successful. In fact, Saban was astonished that his former stalwart slipped so far in the draft.

“I cannot for the life of me think why he would slide in the draft,” Saban said, according to Dan Salamone of Giants.com.

It’s not unjust for Saban to be perplexed, as Collins was considered by many, including NFL.com to be the top draft in this year’s class. Collins may not be the best coverage safety of all time, but he gives his all on every single play, and you’ll never see him give anything less than 100 percent on the football field.

He loves to hit, and he’ll bring a certain presence to the Giants defense. Although not as big as a guy like Kam Chancellor, Collins is still a very physical player. He’ll see a lot of time at linebacker in dime packages, and he’ll be a huge factor in coming up and making plays in the run game. I’ve said before that while comparing Collins to other safeties coached under Saban (Mark Barron, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix), I saw much more of the latter.

Clinton-Dix, of course, had a great rookie year in Green Bay, while Barron has seen his career take a turn for the worst as he was traded from Tampa Bay, the team that drafted him.

Collins will be able to play in the box and make stops, but I don’t think the team envisions him as a traditional 4-3, outside linebacker. He has all of the attributes to succeed, though, and he’ll be able to showcase some of those attributes next year.

Aside from physical attributes, Collins is an incredible leader and has tremendous football intelligence.

“Yes sir, because that’s what I had to learn at Alabama,” Collins said, when asked if he thinks his ability to set up any defense is one of his strengths, according to Giants.com. “It was a big key in knowing everybody’s positions, so everybody would be on the same page. If somebody had a question as the play’s going on, we could tell them right then and there or just tell them where they had to be at.”

Collins will join a safety unit that was devoid of a leader. Collins will get a chance to be that leader in his rookie year. While the hard-hitting, hard-working safety was introduced with a number 27 jersey, Collins doesn’t see himself wearing that number once the regular season officially begins.

“I’m going to ask for it (No. 26),” Collins said, according to Jordan Raanan of NJ.com. Collins wants to wear that number to honor the late, great Sean Taylor, who wore 26 at the University of Miami. “I watch an hour of videos on him. I watch a 30-minute video, there’s a 22-minute video, a 7-minute video. There’s some of him talking. There’s a 30-for-30 I watched on him.”

Modeling your game after one of the best players to ever do it – in the 21st century – isn’t a bad thing. Whether Collins gets his desired number or not is still up in the air, as running back Orleans Darkwa currently holds the rights to No. 26.

Of course, Antrel Rolle wore that number for five years.

Although Rolle left New York and took some of the defense’s swagger with him, Collins, the former first-team All-American, will bring some of his own unique swagger to the unit.

Collins will join a safety unit that is unheralded, but ready to prove people wrong. Second-year man Nat Berhe tweeted out a picture of Seattle’s Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas. No caption, just a picture of the league’s best safety duo.

While it’s tough to decipher exactly what Berhe was trying to say, this writer thinks Berhe was insinuating that he believes he and Collins can be great. They certainly have a long way to go, but the talent is there. Nobody is talking about the Giants safety tandem quite yet, but the unit will be looking to turn some heads come opening night in Dallas.

Next: New York Giants: Analyzing the first-round pick

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