Bijan Joins the Falcons

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I have him in one of my leagues. I look forward to him having a productive season.

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The first of many...

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Game 2 of the Bijan Era was a great one!!!

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Big bright shining star!!!

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The kid is both box office and an on-field difference maker.

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Long form journalism is dying. But this is a deep dive and a solid read.

Worth the time to delve into the mind and background of the next great Falcon RB.

The Burden of Being Bijan Robinson



Robinson, the Falcons’ 5-foot-11, 215-pound star rookie running back, selected with the eighth pick in last spring’s draft, knew from a young age that he always wanted to play football. He’d make moves on invisible defenders through the grocery store aisles. Football seized him wholly, quickly, the way only first love can. “I knew that was what I was supposed to do,” Robinson says.

But he started to realize, the more he studied the game, that whatever was in him would have to manifest differently than it had for previous generations of backs. His coaches and mentors, from childhood to his teenage years to his college years at Texas, had the foresight to prepare him for the way the position was evolving.

He knew he couldn’t just rely on his supernatural speed. He had to not just run at an elite level, but block and catch as well. Become more versatile. “Position-less,” Robinson says. “When you’re truly a positionless player, then you’re the most effective player on the field.”

He knew that would not only preserve his body and lengthen his career, but also make him the best at his craft. He sees the game that way, a skill set to learn. To continually perfect. Robinson also understood the short shelf life for running backs; many are pounded into the ground, suffering from injuries that prematurely end their careers. Running backs of Robinson’s generation are now viewed as replaceable—less valued than they once were in terms of both compensation and status. The days of a running back getting 30 carries, wearing down an opponent through sheer brute force, are over.

Some say that Robinson, a player with all the tools and with a special ability to dance around opponents as if he were a basketball player weaving his way to the hoop, could be the future of a dying position. Robinson doesn’t necessarily think the position is disappearing, but he does see it transforming into something new. “The position’s getting away from the one-dimensional type of running back,” Robinson says. “You have to catch the ball at the backfield now; you have to be able to run the ball on any down. You can’t just be a first- and second-down back. … You’ve got to be able to expand your skill set, make people miss.”

Robinson came into the NFL at a strange time for running backs. The Falcons believed in him enough to use a very high pick on him, which is rare for a running back these days.

But given the way the position has evolved and how its value has shifted around the league, rushing for a ton of yards in college wasn’t a guarantee that he’d make millions upon millions of dollars in the NFL.

But Robinson has a chance to shift that conversation and maybe even redefine the position for the next generation. “He’s become, I believe, the new prototype,” says Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson. “People are going to say, ‘We’re looking for the next Bijan Robinson because of all the things that he provides for an offense.’”

The biggest lesson he’s learned as a rookie? “Patience,” Robinson says. “It’s the hardest lesson.”

The Ringer

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Disappointing rookie season. Bijan was probably expecting to be a candidate to be in offensive rookie of the year but Coach failed to utilize him properly.

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