Patriots' Hightower Doesn't Care About Stats, Just Winning Football Games
BOSTON (CBS) -- We could kind of tell just how good Dont'a Hightower is when he made the "play before the play" in Super Bowl XLIX, wrapping up Marshawn Lynch on first-and-goal before he could get into the end zone and propel the Seattle Seahawks to a win over the New England Patriots.
The very next play, Malcolm Butler picked off Russell Wilson and the Patriots were Super Bowl champs once again.
This season, Hightower has picked up where he left off February in Arizona. He's second on the Patriots with 38 tackles heading into Sunday's matchup with the Washington Redskins, and it's hard not to notice Hightower delivering bone-crushing hits every week. Ask any running back or Ben Roethlisberger, Tyrod Taylor, Brandon Weeden and Ryan Tannehill, the four quarterbacks he's sacked through the first seven games of the season.
Sometimes, you can feel an opposing player's pain as they absorb a pummeling blow from a guy nicknamed "Zeus." He takes pride whenever he hears a warning that "No. 54 is coming" out on the field.
"It's much better dishing it out than receiving it," he told WBZ-TV's Steve Burton for Sunday's Patriots GameDay. "I learned early on to be the hammer, not the nail."
But Hightower is much happier with New England's 7-0 record to start the season than any of his personal statistics.
"I'm not one to make 125 tackles; it's more about the defense having success. Whether I have 100 tackles or 20 tackles, I don't really care as long as we win," he said. "This year my numbers look a little better, but I have great players around me. I have Jamie Collins, Devin McCourty, Patrick Chung, Rob Ninkovich. I have a lot of great players around me and we do such a good job knowing what other teams do. They might look at me or look at Jamie, but we have great guys all the way around. It opens it up for everyone else and we've played so good together, that's the difference with what we have there out on the field."
While many sit in awe at what Hightower can do on the field, he does the same with Collins. His fellow linebacker has become a human highlight reel this season, and Hightower has enjoyed the front-row seat for each jaw-dropping play.
"Absolute animal," Hightower said of Collins. "[Rob Gronkowski] is a football freak. Jamie Collins, I've never seen one guy that is so athletic. He's 6-foot-4, the dude can do front flips, backflips, he can dunk.
"What do you need him to do? Card tricks? Whatever you want him to do," he joked.
Most of those Collins montages lead off with him hurdling the Indianapolis Colts' offensive line to block an extra point in Week 6. As impressive as it was, Hightower has seen it all before. And if he had to guess, we'll see something even more amazing out of Collins in the near future.
"I've seen that in practice. That wasn't even nothing. The stuff at practice – the guy is a freak," he said again. "I told him in practice, 'Just do a front flip over the line and block it.' He can do it.
"If I had to bet, I would bet he could do it," he said. "I wouldn't put my money against him."
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