Greg Auman
NFC South Reporter
Two quotes from the Falcons’ offseason workouts have fans — both in Atlanta and all over fantasy football — excited about the potential of an even larger role for running back Bijan Robinson in his second NFL season.
“I don’t know what the plan is,” Robinson said during the final week of OTA workouts. “But it’s like run first, like I did in college … but still having that access to do creative things out of the backfield, more so like how they use Christian [McCaffrey] down there in San Francisco, something like that. So that’s kind of what the plan is here.”
If that didn’t do the trick, consider what new coach Raheem Morris said as mandatory minicamp closed last week when asked how he’ll fine-tune Robinson’s role in a new offense this fall.
“In the simplest form that you can make it, it’s get the ball to Bijan as much as you can, in as many ideal situations that you possibly can,” Morris said. “For him, he’s so talented, you don’t want to limit the things he can do. But you also don’t want to water it down so much that he’s not doing anything that he can do great. When you get the ball in his hands, he makes people miss. He gets extra yards. He breaks tackles. He’s fast. He’s explosive. He’s strong.”
That wasn’t necessarily the message the Falcons gave Robinson in his rookie year. He rushed for 976 yards and four touchdowns, caught another 58 passes for 487 yards and four more scores, but he wasn’t the dominant force many expected when Atlanta took him with the eighth overall pick out of Texas.
Robinson ranked eighth in the league in yards per carry, but just 19th in carries and tied for 25th in touchdowns. Coach Arthur Smith tended to use him less as the Falcons got closer to the goal line: Robinson ranked 12th in the NFL in total touches as a rookie, but just 32nd in red-zone touches, behind teammate Tyler Allgeier.
That’s not to say Robinson wasn’t heavily involved in the…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/next-christian-mccaffrey-bijan-robinson-eyes-breakout-falcons
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Publish date : 2024-06-19 16:42:28
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