FOXBORO — Why would a team that’s 7-1 and a consensus favorite to win another Super Bowl feel the need to hit the reset button on defense by trading away its most explosive defender?
“It’s my professional judgment,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick coolly replied Wednesday morning when asked for his reasons behind the deal that sent pending free agent Jamie Collins to the Browns for a compensatory pick.
Regardless of what you thought about Collins — from this perspective, he was wildly talented, but also wildly inconsistent — Belichick’s professional judgment means that, going forward, the Patriots will rely on a variety of players to fill his old gig.