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What is Jamie Collins' mysterious illness? Pats president drops hints

Eric Edholm

Jamie Collins might be the New England Patriots' best defender, but he has missed the past four games with what has been deemed an "illness."

Quite the mysterious illness.

The Patriots have been mum on it, providing few tangible details for the most part, as they notoriously are among the most quiet teams in the league on that front.

MRSA? Really bad flu? Some other rare ailment? We don't know.

But we do know, via Patriots president Jonathan Kraft on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s pregame Patriots show from last night, that the team doesn't appear too concerned about it.

“I think, without getting into too much detail, I don’t think that, fortunately, this was a situation where that could happen,” Kraft said. “Jamie’s getting better and getting stronger every day."

But Kraft did the use word "virus" in describing it.

“I know people in non-football life that end up with really bad viruses that get knocked out of their professional lives for a while," Kraft said. "You hate to see it happen to a professional athlete. It obviously resonates much more loudly than it does in our normal lives, but this was something that doesn’t have us worried about the physical infrastructure at the facility.”

Collins was able to return to practice last week on a limited basis but was unable to play in the 30-24 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos Sunday night, the Patriots' first loss of the season. With reports that Dont'a Hightower, another candidate for the team's best defender, perhaps suffering a knee injury in that game the Patriots can't afford to be without Collins for much longer, even with the schedule softening a bit.

Kraft seemed to suggest that whatever Collins was suffering from, it wasn't something that originated from the Patriots' facility.

“I just want you to know, we take really good care of the physical facility,” Kraft said. “We always have a heightened sense of intensity around the cleanliness there. There wasn’t anything related to Jamie’s particular issues that had to do with the facility.”

For a team that has been ravaged by injury and illness, the Patriots could use some good news. Perhaps this is a tiny silver lining.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!