Will Allen Robinson finally get the QB he deserves?
Will Allen Robinson finally get the QB he deserves?
Plus, Dan Campbell is growing on us.
He’s caught passes from Christian Hackenberg, Blake Bortles, and Mitchell Trubisky. Now let’s find Robinson a good QB.
Allen Robinson’s biggest achievement on the gridiron isn’t a Pro Bowl honor or a 1,000-yard season. It’s been dragging awful quarterbacks, kicking and screaming, toward respectability.
In college, his hands helped make Matt McGloin and Christian Hackenberg look like future NFL starters (this was, at best, only *technically* true). He started his pro career catching passes from Blake Bortles and Chad Henne. He then signed with the Bears just in time to ring in the Mitchell Trubisky era — though Chase Daniel and Nick Foles were also given opportunities to throw the ball three yards beyond his general vicinity the past three years.
This could all change in 2021. Robinson is headed to free agency as one of the biggest players set to hit the open market (assuming cash-strapped Chicago doesn’t franchise tag him and leave him in receiving limbo at least one more season). He’s not only set to more than double his career earnings with this next contract, but could also throttle his way into All-Pro consideration by finally, mercifully, connecting with a quarterback that isn’t just a pile of expired cold cuts piled into a set of shoulderpads.
What quarterback could earn the magnificent boost of a wideout capable of tracking down wounded ducks and arm punts better than almost anyone else in the league?
Who will break this ignominious streak of putrid passing? Robinson won’t come cheaply, so we can likely cross WR-needy teams like the Eagles, Lions, and Packers from the list since they’re all already projected to be over the 2021 salary cap. There are also some teams with a little spending room who probably won’t be in the running since they’ve either already got rock solid WR corps or have bigger fish to fry in free agency. So long, Bills, Browns, Cardinals, Buccaneers, Texans, Seahawks, and Raiders.
Who does that leave? And, more importantly, will they have a quarterback in 2021 who can rise above the baseline of “malfunctioning JUGS machine” that’s defined the first seven seasons of Robinson’s career? Let’s take a look at the five most obvious landing spots for the underrated, over-delivering wideout — and rate them based on who can offer the best QB.
Not ranked: New York Jets
As my colleague Kenny Ducey pointed out, the Jets weren’t in the original version of this newsletter. This is because I care about Allen Robinson and the bleakness of seeing him toil as a Jet was too much to bear. Nearly as bad as…
5. The Washington Football Team
2020 starting QB(s): Dwayne Haskins, Kyle Allen, Alex Smith, Taylor Heinicke
Presumptive 2021 starter: Uh… Heinicke?
Let’s start with the positives. Washington has some exciting young skill players and a Robinson-Terry McLaurin combination would be one of the best wideout tandems in the NFL. WFT also has a top-five cap situation, allowing plenty of spending to buttress a dominant defense.
Now the negatives, beginning with a franchise whose entire brand is dysfunction. After Alex Smith’s release, Washington has two quarterbacks on its roster; undrafted 2020 rookie Steven Montez and a guy who spent the bulk of last year out of football entirely. Taylor Heinicke looked solid in his playoff start against the Buccaneers, but Tampa Bay chalked that up to a week of practicing for Smith and then finding themselves up against someone who could both a) move laterally and b) throw more than 10 yards downfield.
That leaves the Football Team with a major hole to fill and more than $52 million with which to fill it. Leaving Washington with oodles of cash and the opportunity to claim another offseason championship has worked out well for the franchise roughly 15 percent of the time. Winning the NFC East means it won’t draft until the back half of the first round. Adding a quarterback via trade or free agency would only return limited options for a team whose QB high water mark the past decade belongs to either Kirk Cousins or a pre-injury Robert Griffin III.
4. New England Patriots
2020 starting QB(s): Cam Newton, Brian Hoyer
Presumptive 2021 starter: ahahaha i dunno man … Jacoby Brissett?
The Patriots have a boatload of cap space and holes to fill just about everywhere. Upgrading the team’s targets will be a priority. Robinson would give New England its best wide receiver since Randy Moss.
Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels could probably draw up a banger of a gameplan for Robinson. The question is who will be throwing him those passes? The post-Tom Brady era fell flat as Cam Newton struggled to connect with a depleted lineup of wideouts and tight ends. He’s a free agent, and while several options exist both in free agency and in the draft, it’s difficult to see a 2021 where the Patriots breach the border of “average” when it comes to quarterback play.
Robinson can make a limited passer look good, but for a price. New England may decide to invest that money elsewhere — like addressing a once-dominant defense that needs some major tweaks this offseason.
3. Indianapolis Colts
2020 starting QB(s): Philip Rivers
Presumptive 2021 starter: Carson Wentz
The Colts could replace an aging T.Y. Hilton atop their WR depth chart with Robinson in order to ease Wentz’s recovery from a potentially career-murdering 2020. The former Eagle was so bad Philadelphia swallowed an NFL record $33.8 million in dead cap space just to be rid of him. He’ll get a chance to prove he’s still the guy who briefly entered the MVP conversation before getting injured all the way back in 2017.
Wentz’s dramatic implosion can be traced back to the awful injury luck that stripped him of above-average offensive line play and receiving in Philly last fall. Indianapolis won’t have to worry about blocking — though Anthony Castonzo retired, it returns the bulk of a typically stellar offensive line. Wideout is a different story. Hilton is a free agent and while he meshed with Philip Rivers to finish 2020 on a high note, he’s still a 31-year-old deep threat whose game is predicated on his diminishing speed. Rookie Michael Pittman looked the part of an impact player, but the depth chart is limited behind him.
Robinson would fix that. He’d not only give Pittman extra room to grow by occupying double teams downfield, but also provide the mistake-erasing threat a quarterback like Wentz, who struggled mightily on his deeper throws, desperately needs. He saw his air yards per attempt rise for the second straight year, from 7.7 to 8.8, as he tried futilely to launch his team back into games. This resulted in a second straight year of dropping efficiency numbers, including career lows in completion rate (57.3, second-worst among QBs) and yards per attempt (6.0, also second-worst).
Robinson would become the best wideout Wentz has ever played with — a faster version of Zach Ertz who can bring reliable hands and defense-shredding routes to the playbook. The Colts have more than $40 million in spending room and a playoff roster ready to go. Robinson could be the kind of expensive luxury for which GM Chris Ballard has been waiting.
2. Jacksonville Jaguars
2020 starting QB(s): Gardner Minshew, Mike Glennon, Jake Luton
Presumptive 2021 starter: Trevor Lawrence
Robinson would land smack-dab in the middle of a rebuild, but he’d return to the franchise that drafted him in the second round back in 2014. Of course, his four seasons as a Jag resulted in 12 wins (he missed all but one game of Jacksonville’s AFC title game run due to a torn ACL), though 2021 presents a new era for the Jaguars. Doug Marrone has been fired. Tom Coughlin is no longer around to prescribe salt tablets to injured players. Trevor Lawrence is on the way.
And what better way to ease Lawrence’s transition to the pros than to surround him with receiving talent? The Rams unlocked the best version of Jared Goff by acquiring Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp. The Bears helped Mitchell Trubisky look competent by adding Robinson, Trey Burton, and Anthony Miller. Jacksonville could follow a similar tack by dipping into its $80+ million in cap space to bring Robinson to a receiving corps that already featured D.J. Chark, 2020 do-it-all rookie Laviska Shenault, and 6’6 slenderman cosplayer Collin Johnson.
It’s unclear just how good Lawrence will be as a rookie, but his typical comparison lauds him as the most complete QB prospect since Andrew Luck. If we’re using that as a projection, Luck threw for nearly 4,400 passing yards as a rookie and recorded a 65.6 QBR — a higher number than every Blake Bortles season and all but one of Trubisky’s. This would be a minor upgrade for 2021 … and a potentially major one for 2022 and beyond.
1. Los Angeles Chargers
2020 starting QB(s): Tyrod Taylor, Justin Herbert
Presumptive 2021 starter: Justin Herbert
Los Angeles can shave nearly $16 million from its books by trading or releasing Mike Williams. It could then turn around and invest that moment in Robinson if the free agent is interested in playing with the reigning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Even if the team keeps Williams on board — a good receiver who hasn’t lived up to his top 10 draft status or the $15.7m salary he’s due in 2021 — the Chargers could carve out room for Robinson’s mega-deal, though it would likely come at the expense of retaining tight end Hunter Henry and making some much-needed offensive line upgrades.
But hey, the value of having a high-performing quarterback on a rookie contract is the chance to spend lavishly elsewhere. A top wideout to pair with Keenan Allen certainly applies. Justin Herbert drew accolades for well-placed deep balls, but his average pass only traveled 7.4 yards downfield —24th-most among 35 qualified QBs. Robinson’s versatility— he played for both the “f--- it, I’m launching this bitch” stylings of Bortles and the “oh my god oh my God oh my GOD” checkdowns of Trubisky — could help Herbert improve his arsenal of throws on both short and deep routes. His presence would also free up Allen to do Allen things; his average target distance dropped by nearly three full yards last season thanks in part to a lack of consistent support elsewhere in the Chargers’ passing offense.
Signing Robinson would be more expensive than drafting from a deep pool of wideout talent, but would also clear a path to bring in a high level lineman like Northwestern’s Rashawn Slater or Virginia Tech’s Christian Darrisaw in this year’s rookie jubilee. It’s a long shot, but I dig it.
— CD
Dan the Man
Confession time: Dan Campbell is starting to grow on me. I wasn’t ready to admit as much until this happened:
When Dan Patrick asked, hypothetically of course, what traits the new Lions coach would want in a quarterback, Campbell started his reply with, “I would say that you'd love the guy to be blond. You'd love for the guy to have a 1 and a 6 on his jersey …”
I’ve gotta hand it to him, that’s pretty good.
It was easy to write Campbell off when the Lions first introduced him as Matt Patricia’s successor. At that point — Jan. 21 — only one minority coach, Robert Saleh, and zero Black coaches had been hired for the NFL’s seven openings (the Texans would later hire David Culley). And here’s this self-described meathead, coming off like a generic-brand Mike Vrabel, fervently advocating for his players to bite off some kneecaps in a testosterone-filled 19-minute opening statement.
It was not a good first impression. However, since then Campbell has taken me by surprise. First, he’s put together a strong coaching staff. That includes two Black coordinators (Anthony Lynn and Aaron Glenn) and a couple of former players who are leading their old position group — Duce Staley (RB) and Antwaan Randle El (WR), both of whom have won Super Bowl rings as a player and a coach. Staley is also serving as the assistant head coach, and Campbell has already committed to putting him on track to become a head coach one day soon.
In addition, Campbell has made the media rounds and shown a sense of humor and more self-awareness than I would have given him credit for initially. He’s also been transparent and has exhibited an actual personality, neither of which Patricia ever did.
After almost two months, a clearer picture of Campbell has emerged. Yes, he’s an ex-jock who loves The Big Lebowski a little too much, past the point in time when that was endearing. Yes, he has some old-school views that he should reconsider. And yes, he unironically calls himself an alpha and makes references to packs, phrases that I only find acceptable when they are used to describe dogs (specifically my dog, who is a total alpha and also very handsome).
(Intellectually, I know he’s not subtweeting the CPAC event from a couple days before that quote, but in my imagination, he definitely is.)
Yet, none of that is what I’d consider to be toxic masculinity. Campbell is just very much a 44-year-old former NFL player from Texas who deeply loves the game of football. There’s nothing wrong with that! I mean, I wouldn’t want to date him or anything, but his “rah rah” mentality seems pretty innocuous.
The lazy thing to do is take one of his bro-ier quotes, minus context, and laugh about what lunkhead he is. But when you listen to what he’s really saying, full quotes included, then he seems to have a good understanding of who he is and what he needs to be as a coach.
I don’t know how the players will respond to his intensity, and I don’t know if he can win. This is still Detroit, after all. But I think Campbell genuinely cares about the Lions organization and will do everything he can to try to succeed. And that’s already an improvement over the last guy. — SH