Seattle Seahawks rookie defensive end L.J. Collier, the team’s first round pick in 2019, played a career-high 37 snaps on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.
While he did not record a single tackle, pressure, or quarterback hit, coach Pete Carroll felt it was the best performance of Collier’s career to date.
“I thought he was really active,” Carroll said on Monday. “He played a lot of plays. I think he played 40 plays or something like that. It was really a good outing for him. He was physical and played tough. We didn’t get to the quarterback with him, but that’s his best game by far of contributing. He’s just going to stay in the mix now. He’s really part of it.”
Depending on one’s optimism level, this quote can be viewed as a positive sign regarding the rookie’s progress this season (progress that was stunted by an ankle injury suffered in training camp) or a negative sign – the team’s first round pick had his best game of the season and didn’t even record a single meaningful statistic.
The answer likely lies somewhere in the middle. Collier’s growth this season has not happened particularly quickly, especially for one of the oldest rookies in the draft, and for him to barely have a role on a defensive line that has struggled for good chunks of the year is definitely discouraging.
However, missing the preseason cost Collier extremely valuable development time. The fact that Carroll sees improvement from the rookie is a great sign that he’ll be a contributor for this team next season, following in the footsteps of Rasheem Green and taking that second-year leap.
Regardless of whether you see the glass as half-full or half-empty, it’s pretty clear Collier won’t have a big impact the rest of this season.
However, there’s still a real chance he’s a big-time contributor on this team, potentially starting as soon as 2020.
