ESPN article on LJ Collier's breakout year

olyfan63 said:

Reading the thread title, I thought maybe this was an early April Fool's joke?
As far as I knew, LJ's only breakout was as somebody's avatar on this board, failing to sack Kyler Murray but drawing a holding call in the end zone and a safety.

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SoulfishHawk said:

"Breakout"

Just another average at best player who blames his former team for his crap play on the field.

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toffee said:

I was quite touched by his story, he could have given up after his injury with the Cardinals, most probably would have. He came, strongish, to show that if nothing else, he is a legit NFL player.

Good job Colliers, keep up the good work. I always put him in the same group as Penny, but he is not, he wanted it more, and strong enough go stay wanting it more. He rewarded me for creating threads about his achievements. Maybe he read my thread and got motivated. can I get a cut LJ of your new contract? lol.

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keasley45 said:

It can absolutely happen that a person isn't a great fit for one organization, underachieves, is fired, then lands somewhere else where he connects better and flourishes under better leadership. Happens all the time.

And outside of that, its not like we presented him with a great group of leaders to work under. Ken Norton (Fired. Horrible defenses under his leadership). Clint Hurtt (Fired. Even worse defenses under is leadership). Pete (Fired, in large part for not assembling a better group of coordinators or holding them to account). So is it so hard to believe a player who says he struggled to find a footing when the guys leading you cant keep their jobs- and oh, BTW 31 other teams agree they also arent qualified to lead a defense.

Its more a reach IMO to think that the leadership on defense while he was here, although being horrible at actually assembling and leading a defense, was GREAT at mentoring and getting the most from their players than it is to call Collier out as making excuses for poor play during his time in Seattle. He may not be an All-pro or even pro-bowler, but you don't have to be either of those to be a player who contributes positively to his team - something he is doing now but couldn't sniff while he was here.

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HawkRiderFan said:

When he says "coaches who didn't want him there" I hope he's not referring to Pete cause that would mean JS was the one who wanted him.

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toffee said:

We will never know. From the press:

Schneider said:

Collier has physical talents, to be sure. As Schneider described seeing Collier at the Senior Bowl, "Being on the field at the Senior Bowl was really a cool thing to see, because he's got those heavy hands, he jumps off the ball, he's got snap anticipation." But the Seahawks also liked Collier for some of his intangibles. Collier didn't get a ton of recruiting interest as a small-school prospect out of tiny Munday, Texas—he graduated in a class of 25 seniors—then during his freshman year at TCU, his mother, Ruby, died after a battle with cancer.​

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As Schneider put it, "He's just our kind of guy, that's the best way to describe it."​

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Carroll also said:

"He's going to play five-technique (end) for us, and he's very flexible and he can move around," Carroll said. "The name I saw on TV—he's a lot like Michael Bennett. He has the versatility and the style and the penetration ability. He's really slippery, terrific pass-rush makeup. So we're going to fit him right into the scheme in that regard. We think it's going to work out great. You could see early on that he had that kind of stuff to him. He's real long, really good length, and he's got a really nice pass-rush bag of tricks. He's got all the stuff. So we think we've really got something special. And I fell in love with the fact that he had a big chip on his shoulder and he wanted to prove it and all that. He'll really fit in."​

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