Jamie Collins has been a significant piece in this New England Patriots defense.

They’ve played lights out this season, while allowing only 6.9 points per game through seven weeks. This defense has accrued 18 interceptions, 26 sacks and seven forced fumbles. New England has only allowed 12 third-down conversions and they have the largest point differential (175) through seven weeks since 1920.

Collins has played a huge factor in this, while leading the team in sacks and recording the second-most interceptions. Collins has four sacks this season and three interceptions — one of which he took back for a touchdown.

He’s continued to improve at covering running backs and wide receivers this season, earning him to the top coverage grade for Pro Football Focus.

Jamie Collins leads all linebackers in coverage grade through 7 weeks pic.twitter.com/iJHngAeHmi — PFF (@PFF) October 24, 2019

Bill Belichick spoke about Collins’ improvement during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

“Jamie’s done a great job for us,” Belichick said. “He’s a versatile player as we all know, he can do a lot of different things and he’s made tackles, he’s rushed the passer, he’s turned the ball over, intercepted passes, been around the ball a lot. Excellent communicator, he does a great job of coordinating and organizing. A lot of things we do defensively, especially when he’s in the middle, on the outside some too but particularly when he’s playing the inside spots with some of our other linebackers, so he’s able to play at the end of the line, inside.

“He’s helped us in the kicking games, he’s done a nice job for us on special teams when we’ve asked him to do that. He’s a very explosive, powerful guy (who’s) very athletic and smart and instinctive. He has a really good understanding of our system. He’s been great with some of the younger players, guys with less experience. Even though he wasn’t here, a lot of the things we’re doing are things that we did before and his experience and confidence level in doing those has been very, very impressive.”

Collins is playing better than he did during his first stint with the Patriots, and he’s even in the conversation for Defensive Player of the Year.