On Tuesday, the Steelers made a trade with the Rams to acquire Allen Robinson, though the word 'trade' might be a bit little misleading.
The teams swapped seventh-round picks in the coming NFL Draft, with the Steelers moving from 234 overall to 251, and the Rams picked up a major portion of Robinson’s massive contract. So, in reality, the Steelers ended up trading $5 million in salary cap space for Robinson, who is coming off a dismal season with the Rams. After this season, if the Steelers are unhappy with Robinson, they can part ways with him with zero financial ramifications.
As for the Rams, they're going to be a disaster this year. They're preparing for a rebuild and have a legit chance of picking No. 1 overall in the 2024 draft. After signing him to a three-year, $46.5 million contract, Robinson didn’t work out nearly as planned in 2022.
But don’t forget, just one year ago, no one really batted an eye at that lucrative contract.
Last year, Robinson appeared in 10 games before his season was ended with a foot injury, but by that point of the year, the Rams' season was basically done anyway. He was targeted 52 times and caught 33 passes for just 339 yards. He caught three touchdowns and averaged 10.2 yards per reception. Robinson was disappointing, he was obviously frustrated and even seemed somewhat disinterested on the field at times last year.
But to be fair, the Rams were one of the two most-injured teams in the league, their offensive line was a mess, and Matthew Stafford only played in nine games one year after Los Angeles won the Super Bowl. Only three offenses finished the season with a worse EPA per play, only four had a worse EPA per dropback, and Houston was the only offense that averaged fewer yards per play than the Rams last year. Los Angeles not only started Stafford at quarterback, but also Baker Mayfield, Bryce Perkins and John Wolford. It was a disaster.
Robinson isn’t yet 30-years old. He has played in 110 NFL games. On a per-game basis over his career, Robinson averages 8.2 targets, 4.8 receptions, 61.3 yards and 0.39 touchdown receptions and 12.8 yards per catch. He’s had an excellent career including three seasons with over 1,000 yards. In Robinson’s second season, he racked up 1,400 yards with Jacksonville and as recently as 2020, he put up 1,250 yards with the Bears.
What are Robinson’s strengths and weaknesses and what will his likely role be with the Steelers? Robinson never had great speed, but he is 6-foot-3 and well over 200 pounds with long limbs and a huge catching radius. During his career, he has been one of the NFL’s best contested-ball receivers. He is great at the catch-point and goes up and gets the football very well with great body control. Those traits are often on display down the sidelines as well as in the end zone. Robinson has excelled with in breaking routes, something the Steelers need much more of in their passing game diet. He has been strong on slat routes and well as much deeper in breakers.
For the better part of his career, Robinson was one of the best receivers in the game versus man coverage, often winning with his physicality at the line of scrimmage. Robinson is also a top-notch run blocker and doesn’t take that responsibility lightly.
With Blake Bortles throwing him the ball, click here for a long reel of what Robinson brought to the table as a second-year player. He is no longer this same guy, but it does give you an excellent sample of what he once was and his style of play.
Almost comically, Robinson was known as a receiver that made his quarterback look better than he really was and few receivers in recent memory, including while at Penn State with Christian Hackenberg, had worse quarterback play on a consistent basis than Robinson. With the Jaguars, it was Bortles and Chad Henne. With the Bears, Robinson was thrown to by Mitch Trubisky, Chase Daniel, Nick Foles, Andy Dalton, and Justin Fields as a rookie over his four years in Chicago.
Stafford is the only quarterback Robinson has played with that can even be categorized as above-average. And with all respect to Stafford, of all the quarterbacks last year that played 300 or more snaps, his EPA per play (-.061) was only better than Mayfield (-.123), Davis Mills (-.105), and Carson Wentz (-.062). And Stafford’s 6.7 yards per attempt was only higher than five quarterbacks that attempted at least 100 passes in 2022. Of the 31 qualifying quarterbacks last year, Stafford finished 22nd in QBR. Just when Robinson thought he was getting an upper-tier quarterback, it went right down the toilet.
Over the past two years he has played just 22 games and averages a measly 34 receiving yards per game. While the last two seasons have not been good any way you cut it, and he very well could be a shell of the player he once was, Robinson’s style of play does often translate well as receivers age. Injuries have also been a major culprit for Robinson’s poor play last year as well as his final season in Chicago in a hideously designed offense that didn’t fit Fields whatsoever. And the Bears' pass protection was flat-out awful in 2021. Chicago’s coaching staff, which then got fired, had Robinson running an inane number of slants and curl routes, which became incredibly predictable.
So, there are some built-in reasons why the past two seasons have been Robinson’s worst. Both situations had to have been incredibly frustrating.
Here are some clips from Robinson’s final season in Chicago. Remember, when the Rams gave him a big contract after the 2021 season, very few people thought that was outlandish. And that was just one year ago:
The Steelers are pretty set on the outside with Diontae Johnson and George Pickens. Exactly 13.1% of both Pickens’ and Johnson’s snaps came out of the slot last year and for his career, Johnson has only operated from the inside 11.4% of the time. It should be noted that while he didn’t play a single snap last year, Anthony Miller has lined up 80% of the time from the slot over the course of his career. Calvin Austin was used a ton outside in college, but certainly projects inside when he finally sees the field in the NFL, as well as on the perimeter if his size doesn’t hinder him too much in this regard.
Early in his career, Robinson was used almost exclusively on the perimeter, aligning on the inside just 12.6% of the time as a rookie and 15.1% in his second season. But over the past five years, Robinson has lined up in the slot anywhere between 28.9% and 41.3% of his snaps. Last year with the Rams, he was at 33.6%. And remember, as a top two wide out on his team, when the offense didn’t have three wide receivers on the field, Robinson was almost always going to align on the outside.
Since moving on from Chase Claypool, it sure seemed as though the Steelers have been searching for a power slot receiver. Their pre-draft visits indicate this very strongly, bringing in projected Day 2 players with size such as Cedric Tillman and Jonathan Mingo. Who is to say for sure, but it certainly seems as though Robinson’s usage out of the slot will spike even further in a Steelers uniform and he obviously could play outside if Johnson or Pickens were to miss time.
Does this mean the Steelers are done at wide receiver overall minus a few small tweaks? Quite possibly. But if the right guy falls in the draft, they still could conceivably go that direction. They could also bring back Miles Boykin as their sixth wideout, or someone similar that offers a lot on special teams, an area in which Boykin excelled last year. But chances are, the Steelers' top five receivers will be Johnson, Pickens, Robinson, Austin and Miller.
This move makes a lot of sense for the Steelers. They have only a small chunk of cap space invested in a player that has legitimate excuses for his poor results over the past two years but has otherwise had an excellent career.
