Atlanta Falcons cornerback Jalen Collins has been suspended by the NFL for PEDs for the second season in a row. He will miss 10 games for Atlanta this year.
Well, this isn’t any good for the Atlanta Falcons. For the second season in a row, cornerback Jalen Collins has been suspended for using performance enhancing drugs by the NFL. He missed the first four games of the 2016 season. As a second-time offender, he will be out 10 games for the defending NFC champions.
Atlanta may have the players in the secondary to offset this loss, but this risky pick of general manager Thomas Dimitroff has not panned out at all. Collins came to Atlanta as the No. 42 pick out of LSU in the 2015 NFL Draft. In college, Collins had off-the-field troubles that got in the way of his promising career in the SEC.
When on the field, Collins showed that he can play big snaps for a good defense. After Falcons star cornerback Desmond Trufant succumbed to a season-ending injury mid-season, Collins was one of the guys that stepped up for Dan Quinn’s defense in Atlanta.
With Collins out until mid-November due to his most recent PED suspension, you have to wonder if Atlanta is about to move on from their former second round pick. The best ability is availability and Collins will miss 14 games over two years by not keeping himself clean.
Atlanta has proven secondary players like Trufant, cornerback Robert Alford and safeties Ricardo Allen and Keanu Neal, but missing Collins only hurts the Falcons in the long run. There is no way around this: Atlanta is not happy with Collins not taking his job seriously.
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This is a Super Bowl contending team and Collins was supposed to play a big role in Atlanta’s secondary. New defensive coordinator Marquand Manuel will have to adjust, but this recent suspension is absolutely embarrassing for Collins. His NFL career is now in question going forward.