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Former Seattle Seahawks running back Alex Collins once again finds himself without an NFL team.
Having spent the last two seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, the former Arkansas star was waived on Friday, a mere two weeks before he was set to hit the market as a restricted free agent. According to the Baltimore Sun, Collins was arrested after a morning car crash early Friday morning just a mile away from the team facility. Charges are not yet known and it’s also not been confirmed whether or not Collins was the driver of the vehicle.
Collins was drafted by Seattle in 2016 in the fifth round, seeing limited playing time until an impressive showings against the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers in the final two weeks of the season. He was cut by the Seahawks prior to the start of the 2017 season, and found himself in Baltimore, where he quickly became the team’s starter, rushing for 973 yards on 212 carries, as well as 6 touchdowns. His success in Baltimore at a time when the Seahawks run game was completely inept did bring up some debate over whether or not Collins should’ve been retained.
The following season, while Collins did rack up 8 touchdowns in 2018, he was increasingly ineffective with everything else. His yards per carry plunged to 3.6, and he soon fell out of favor with the emergence of Gus Edwards. Collins ended up on injured reserve due to a foot injury, hence just ten games played.
If Collins isn’t claimed by any team, he’ll immediately become an unrestricted free agent. Should a team claim him, they could slap on a tender and try to get a free fifth-round draft pick, per our own John P. Gilbert.
A team should claim Alex Collins just so they can put an original round tender on him and try to get a fifth round pick for free.
— florida john but not a florida john (@SeahawksMachine) March 1, 2019
Literally completely free if he's tendered and some other team signs him.