Anyone who’s wrestled in their life can tell you that the skills learned are invaluable in life and most any other sport. There’s no ball, no club, bat, or stick, and there’s no teammates on the mat with you vs another person.
As for football, the skills learned in wrestling translate directly to those linemen utilize everyday. No doubt those skills are a predominant factor in what makes Maliek Collins such a dominant defense on the interior defensive line.
Collins wasn’t just a wrestler, he was a damn good one. As a senior at Center High School in Kansas City, the 285-pound heavyweight was a perfect 48-0 and won the State 2A Championship. Here a local station did a feature on Collins after he had gone 48-5 his junior season and made it to the state quarterfinals.
Along with his wrestling prowess, he was a 2-way star in football and received a scholarship to play football at Nebraska, essentially leaving any potential wrestling career behind. But the skills you gain from wrestling never leave you.
“It’s big for leverage and my counter rush and things like that,” Collins said over conference call Thursday from Raiders training camp. “But it also gets your hands out here, so it makes your chest more available. I try to get out for that because it’s more of a grabbing style, especially heavyweight, so I got to keep my hands tight.”
Collins was primarily a freestyle wrestler in high school, though undoubtedly he would have done well in other styles such as Greco-Roman or Sumo. These days he said he boxes as part of his offseason training.
Last season, Collins weighed in at a hefty 325. As of today, he’s down to 303, an astounding 22-pound wait drop. The Raiders want him as their pass rushing three-technique defensive tackle, a position Collins described as “the dog. Gotta be the key. He has to establish things in his get-off.”
The former Cowboy did plenty of that in Dallas, even at 325 pounds, putting up 48 pressures from the interior. He and the Raiders are looking to build upon that.
He came over with new defensive line coach Rod Marinelli, and hopes to emulate some of the greats who Marinelli has coached.
“Keith Millard, that was the first one I was introduced to by Marinelli,” Collins continued. “And then John Randall of course, Warren Sapp, after that Marinelli went to Chicago so he had Tommy Harris, Henry Melton, and in Dallas when Tyrone [Crawford] and I came in. . . those are the people that I strive to be more like.”
Gruden has said a couple times that Collins is the key to this defense. As a wrestler he knows what it means to have all the pressure on himself to make it happen, so I think he’s got this.