I remember featured Brian Robinson on one of those mic'ed up episodes. I think it kind of explains why everyone loves him. Good guy, totally into the game and supporting everyone, really easy to root for. Just a great "team" player.
That doesn't change the fact that I think we need an upgrade or to add lightning to his thunder, but you can see why players and coaches get attached to the guy.
And I want to quibble with
skinsinparadise critique of BRob. We've seen Brain break a lot of tackles. We've seen him routinely get hit behind the line of scrimmage and end up with a two or three yard gain. Problem isn't that he isn't a power back. He is. The problem is that he's a power back who wears down. At the end of every season, he seems to get hurt and when hurt he can no longer break those tackles.
IMO they can get away with him as thunder but he's a jag thunder guy mostly. He's basically Perine who is used as an occasional change of pace type RB, not a lead guy. I don't even love him in that 2nd back role because he's so up and down but I can live with him as sort of a spot duty back. Too bad we don't have more picks because as far as power backs, they are plenty in this draft who IMO are better than him -- even in that 3rd-5th range. I'd take for example a power back Damien Martinez over Robinson anyday of the week and then some.
Agree. They definitiely need a lightening guy. I think Rodriguez likely can be the thunder if Robinson continues to slide so they can get away without upgrading power needs. But, I think more simply they need a #1 back and while I prefer speed, I'd be good with power too.
I got if anything a little invested in Brian Robinson, he was one of my 3rd-5th round fav wants in that draft. I wouldn't say I look bad on that take or that great either. He's sorted of ended up what some of his critics thought back then which was a decent power back but nothing special. He's about a 4 yards a carry guy, high 700 yards rusher. It's OK. Decent. But generally its yawn from the context of having anything that scares the opponent's defense on the ground.
Typically, running backs playing with special mobile QBs for the first time have career bests. RPOs, ROs freezes defenders -- and they are terrified of the QB running so the RBs feed off of it. I recall seeing somewhere that Henry had like double the runs he's had in his typical season where he was untouched with his first few steps because the focus was on Lamar, etc. It's practically conventional wisdom to expect career years out of Rbs who are playing for the first time with an electric running QB. We saw that with Alfred Morris. Morris who was no where near the same dude after that 2012 season.
So with the sun shinning at 72 degrees, the seas parted perfectly for Robinson. Yet he has another pedestrian and up and down season. Imagine a good back playing in this system? There is nothing that Robinson is special at. He's an average at best run blocker. Average pass catcher. Decent power runner -- but also VERY inconsistent and consistency with the run game is important. Part of the idea of you are going to major with a power back is to get more consistency because in theory they can make something out of nothing like we saw for example with that Rodriguez TD run against Tennessee.
It's borderline IMO wild to have this dude as the #1 back for a team wanting to make the SB, especially in the NFC playoffs where you are dealing with Barkley, Gibbs, Irving, Kryen Williams, etc. Talk about going to a gun fight with a knife. We made up for it by having Jayden the prime runner for more games than not but we can't sustain it.
"We've seen" past tense is the operative point. He's played with more oomph it seems to me in the past or early this season. But he tends to get hurt, banged up, etc and he does not to my estimation play with the same ferocity game in and game out. Heck I recall someone said they noticed on the sidelines Robinson noticing how Rodriguez was plowing through Tennessee defenders and it inspired him to have some reps playing with that same oomph. Forgot who said it whether it was a player, Paulsen?
I've made this point on the draft thread when talking about Tahj Brooks. I said Brooks is now who Robinson USED to be. Robinson was never a great back or arguably even a good back. But he's had some good games. For most of last half of the season, Robinson was a below average running back. And I usually don't think of that of him. I usually think he's at least average, maybe 6 out of 10. I think you take a 6 out of 10 running back and they turn into a 4.5, you need to upgrade.
Logan Paulsen who is about a sunny side up as it gets about this team ironically was talking about the subject on Sheehan in a recent podcast where they both thought it was possible that this team moves on from Robinson after the draft.
I mentioned he's a good guy from what I hear. But I am old school Joe Gibbs style, hate players that give bulletin board material to the opposition. And among other things it came off comical when Brian publicly said Washington was the better team over the Eagles. And equally comically when he started that game days later by giving the Eagles two fumbles. lol, I am sure the Eagles enjoyed ribbing Brian about it while he was on the ground coughing the ball up and having another bad game against the team that has no problem shutting him down, at least this year they don't. I would say Robinson just had a rare one off comment but then seeing him do it with a Lions player -- made me think dude, just keep quiet and let your play do your talking versus your mouth.
 }})
