Some receivers have all the luck, and some really don’t. Maybe you played with Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers most of your career, and things were laid out for you in a relative sense. On the other side of that equation, maybe you’re Andre Johnson, whose list of quarterbacks with the Houston Texans from 2003-2014 was hardly a Murderers’ Row, and Johnson still led the entire league in several receiving categories at his peak. When you can do that, and Matt Schaub was your best quarterback, you probably deserve to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
But no receiver of this era has been more snakebit at the quarterback position than Allen Robinson, and this goes back to his days at Penn State. There, his primary quarterbacks were Matt McGloin and Christian Hackenberg. Regardless, Robinson was excellent in his two seasons as a starter for the Nittany Lions, gaining 174 passes for 2,450 yards and 17 touchdowns in 2012-2013.
That got him selected by the Jaguars in the second round of the 2014 draft, and Robinson’s quarterback purgatory continued. From Blake Bortles and Chad Henne in four seasons with the Jaguars, to Mitch Trubisky, Chase Daniel, Nick Foles, Andy Dalton, and Justin Fields in four seasons with the Bears, Robinson has never had a quarterback throwing him the ball who could be said to play at an above-average level. Robinson has also had a crazy quilt of play-designers throughout his career — his last in the 2021 was Matt Nagy, which kind of says it all.
Now? Things are quite different for Robinson, who signed a three-year, $46.5 million contract with $30.25 million guaranteed with the Los Angeles Rams in March. Going from the Bears’ quarterback situation to Matthew Stafford, and from Nagy to Sean McVay is… well, we’ll have to throw some more RAM in our Situation Improvement Generator before we can accurately track what an upgrade this is.
Through training camp, Robinson has proven to be everything the Rams hoped he would be — a big (6-foot-2, 220-pound) target who can win in contested catch situations all day long.
Look ma, one hand. 👋
1️⃣ @AllenRobinson pic.twitter.com/Ob3srlhx6u
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) August 4, 2022
This wasn’t bad, either.
This angle of Matthew Stafford's no-look pass, Pt. II. 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/y4BIwoxbtx
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) August 7, 2022
“I think just being able to get him those targets,” McVay said on August 1, when asked what excited him about adding Robinson to the roster. “He can really run a bunch of different types of routes down there. You saw there was a great job. Matthew kind of working through a progression… big, strong physical guy working across the back of the end zone. You talk about big catch radius where it doesn’t even feel like he has to leave the ground to really be kind of right at that goalpost.”
Stafford agreed regarding Robinson’s ability to win when it counts, pointing to one particular pass.
“He was like 3A, maybe four, in the read progression on that play. Kind of a backside route and my eyes were at the one and two on the right side, and moved the post player just because I was reading it out. I was able to click back, guys up front did a great job giving me some time on that. He was racing across the back of the end zone, tried to put it in a nice high spot, nothing bad would happen up there. He went up and got it, great diving catch, strong hands. That’s what he’s about. That’s what’s going to help us put points on the board — making plays like that in the red zone.”
When you’ve already got a connection like this with your new quarterback, good things are bound to happen — as long as Stafford’s “Thrower’s Elbow” is okay over time.
But as McVay has said, Robinson is about more than just one route concept, or just beating guys up for touchdowns (though there’s nothing wrong with beating guys up for touchdowns). Let’s take a look, as much as we can given who’s been throwing him the ball before, at all the different ways in which Allen Robinson can make the Rams’ offense better.