Cardinals Remain Silent on Collins Arrest

No statements have come from the Cardinals following the arrest of first-round pick Zaven Collins.

Since it became known Monday that Cardinals linebacker Zaven Collins had been arrested the day before and charged with speeding and reckless driving, there has been silence from team headquarters.

No statements; not even the usual “we are aware of the situation and will have no comment at this time.”

Truth is, the club has to be disappointed with the actions of a player expected to be the starter at Mike linebacker in Week 1.

He was traveling in his Mercedes at 76 miles per hour in a 35-mph zone north of Old Town Scottsdale.

The Cardinals have high expectations for Collins, who was the 16th overall choice in the draft and signed his rookie contract just 13 days prior to the arrest.

The contract was for a fully guaranteed four-year contract worth $14.7 million that included an $8.04 million signing bonus.

After he was selected in the draft, Cardinals general manager Steve Keim said Collins had an “Alpha Tag.” 

He explained, “For us, the ‘Alpha Bird Tag’ is given to players that have rare leadership qualities, great instincts, a great feel for the game, are tremendous locker-room guys and Zaven Collins is certainly one of them. So, there are generally about four or five of them in this draft, or in most drafts. There were five in this draft and Zaven Collins was one of the ‘Alpha Birds’ for us.”

Surely, speeding isn’t the worst thing anyone can do. However, it seems clear Collins is lucky the incident didn’t produce any injuries.