Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment,
let’s take a look at how 2025 free-agent signing Maliek Collins has improved the Browns’ top-ranked defense – not only as a quarterback disruptor, but also as a mentor to younger teammates who would do well to follow his example..
You know how it is when you have to wait a while to get what you really want, and when you do get it, it’s worth so much more?
Welcome to Maliek Collins’ world.
The 30-year-old defensive lineman, selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the third round of the 2016 draft, has quite a few stops in his career – Dallas through 2019, the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020, the Houston Texans from 2021-2023, the San Francisco 49ers in 2024, and finally, the Cleveland Browns in 2025 after Collins signed a two-year, $20 million contract with $13 million guaranteed.
Safe to say at this point, there will be no issues keeping Collins around for a second season given the way the first one is going. Through the first five games of the season, Collins has four sacks, 17 total pressures, six tackles, three tackles for loss, and nine stops. The 6’2, 310-pound Collins may be built like an undersized nose tackle, but he can get it done all over the place – in 2025, he’s lined up 71% of the time as a three-tech tackle, and the rest of the time as an edge defender or over the tackles.
Of course, Collins came into a defensive line already defined by Myles Garrett, and the addition of fifth overall pick Mason Graham certainly helped. But it’s Collins who has been the unexpected star. Among players categorized as interior defensive linemen, only Jeffery Simmons of the Tennessee Titans, Zach Allen of the Denver Broncos, and Chris Jones of the Kansas City Chiefs have more quarterback disruptions. Those guys are among the NFL’s top inside wrecking balls, so that’s serious company.
In Collins’ case, he had done his homework before he signed with the Browns and started work with defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz. He knew that he wanted to be a part of a front that was constantly attacking, so that was the right fit, and Collins has also been tasked to help Graham get with a more aggressive front as opposed to the read-and-react he was asked to do frequently at Michigan.
“I’ve never played in any other system, so I only know one way of playing,” Collins said in August of his relationship with the rookie. “So I think for him, it’s just to remove the thought of having to play step with blocks and things like that, and just think about getting off the ball.
“Just keep things simple. Getting off the ball is the first thing. Playing with pad level, bringing hands on their palms, things like that.”
It didn’t take too long for that to come together.
Collins also knows that being on the same line with an alien like Garrett means that he’ll get more one-on-one opportunities, but he has been double-teamed on 45 snaps this season, and he is more than capable of bringing it when those doubles happen to him.
“It just comes down to winning your one-on-ones,” Collins said before the season, when asked how he could benefit from opponent focus on The Man. “If you’re winning your one-on-ones and having production out of it, then that’s obviously going to draw a guy from Myles, or draw a guy from Mason, or whoever else it might be.
“I think also schematically, Schwartz is an aggressive guy – an aggressive play-caller. He’ll dial up things and it creates one-on-ones for all of us across the board. Schwartz will kind of line guys up everywhere. He’ll do whole line changes in the middle of a drive.”
That has also been to Collins’ benefit. He had two sacks and six total pressures in Cleveland’s 21-17 loss to the Minnesota Vikings last Sunday in London, and the one he got with 10:25 left in the game was a result of Schwartz’s diabolical plans. The Browns had Garrett as a one-tech nose tackle with his hand on the ground, Collins as a three-tech outside of Garrett, linebacker Carson Schwesinger as a stand-up three-tech who dropped after a bluff rush, Graham in a wide-nine alignment outside of Schwesinger, and Alex Wright as the end outside of Collins.
At the snap, Collins stunted all the way from his gap to the opposite shoulder of center Blake Brandel, and Schwesinger’s drop completely upset Minnesota’s protection for left guard Joe Huber. And that was the end of that play.
Does Collins care that he’s underrated? According to Browns defensive line coach Jacques Cesaire, who worked with Collins in Houston and pounded the table for Collins this offseason, not at all.
“The best part about Maliek is, he don’t care,” Cesaire said in September. “He is a professional, probably one of the best professionals I’ve ever been around. Meticulous, detailed notes. He is a student of the game. He understands how to rush a quarterback, he understands how to rush protection, and he just works at it every single day. And he holds everybody accountable to it. You know, these rush opportunities are few and far between and he does a good job maximizing every single opportunity that he gets.”
The Browns have all kinds of young talent in their defense, but it’s always good to have that older mentor type who is happy to hand his knowledge down to the next era, even as he continues to play at a high level. For Maliek Collins, who may be playing his best football ever, it’s the best of both worlds, and a Browns defense that currently ranks seventh in Defensive DVOA would not be the same without him.
