Evaluating Brian Robinson’s development at running back
Looking forward to the future by evaluating the development of RB Brian Robinson
One of the few bright spots for the Washington Commanders this season has been running back Brian Robinson. He’s emerged as a strong runner but also as a capable receiving and solid pass protector, meaning he has value on all three downs. When he was drafted, the Commanders anticipated him being a workhorse, between-the-tackles type power back, but now we’re coming to the end of his second season in the league and looks able to offer much more, which is promising for a potential new regime coming in at the end of the season.
As a runner, Robinson has always been someone comfortable working with gap scheme runs. In college at Alabama, he was used to running plenty of gap schemes like power, counter and duo, and had no issues switching between running with the quarterback under center or aligning alongside the quarterback in the shotgun. This has proven to be valuable this year as Washington primarily has aligned in the shotgun. When they’ve run their gap scheme runs, Robinson has hit some big plays.
Here against the Eagles, the Commanders align in the shotgun with Robinson to the right of quarterback Sam Howell. The Commanders run a same side power scheme, meaning instead of Robinson running to the opposite side of the formation from his original alignment, as most gun runs typically do, the play hits to the same side as his alignment.
The blocking up front is strong from Washington. With right tackle Andrew Wylie and right guard Sam Cosmi doing an excellent job picking up the defensive tackle and walking him backwards towards the linebacker. From that position, Wylie can then peel off to pick up the linebacker while Cosmi maintains the block on the defensive tackle. Left guard Chris Paul does a nice job pulling to the right side and wrapping around for the other linebacker, who hits the gap quickly but Paul manages to still make the block.
Robinson shows great initial patience, allowing Paul to pull around and make his block before fully getting into stride. Once Paul makes contact with the linebacker and effectively kicks him outside, Robinson then knows exactly where he wants to hit the run. It might have been tempting to bounce the run outside with a big gap between Paul and tight end John Bates outside, but the play is designed to hit inside and Robinson sticks to the correct path. He’s rewarded for his patience and discipline as he works inside of Paul’s block and up behind the double team of Cosmi and Wylie. Once there, he spots the space outside and shows a strong sudden burst of acceleration to the edge.
He turns the corner and gets all the way to the sideline where he runs by cornerback Darius Slay who struggles to even get a hand on him. He charges his way down the sideline before eventually being forced out for a 29-yard gain.
That was a nice run by Robinson that showed traits of patience, discipline and then burst and acceleration, but the play was blocked very nicely for him. That isn’t always the case, but Robinson has shown many times this season he’s capable of making plays happen when the blocks aren’t set up quite so nicely.
This time against the Giants, we see the exact same same side power scheme that we just saw against the Eagles. However, this time the blocks don’t work out quite as nicely. Wylie and Cosmi still do a good job doubling their defensive tackle and driving him to the linebacker while Chris Paul pulls ok too. The issues occur elsewhere. First of all, John Bates on the edge fails to contain the edge defender and loses control of the block. That forces Paul to block the edge defender for him instead of the linebacker that Paul was meant to block, leaving the linebacker scraping to the edge unblocked. On top of that, center Tyler Larsen struggles to seal off defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence on the back side. Lawrences bursts through the block and attempts to chase down Robinson from the back side.
Despite all this, Robinson does extremely well. He feels Lawrence approaching quickly from the back side of the run, so instead of staying patient, he picks up the tempo to try and avoid the powerful defensive tackle inside. He immediately looks to work outside to run away from the pressure, but as he gets there, he finds an unblocked linebacker on the edge. Robinson shows excellent reactionary skills and makes a very sharp cut back inside to make multiple defenders miss and hit the lane created by Lawrence being so aggressive. Once there, Robinson makes another sharp cut to avoid the defensive end on the back side before then getting vertical and running over a safety before the rest of the defense eventually brings him down.
So we’ve seen Robinson is capable of being patient and then has the burst to accelerate through the hole once it emerges when plays are blocked well, but he also has the awareness to change his tempo and the cutting ability to avoid unblocked defenders. For a back that is listed at 6-foot-1, 228 pounds, you wouldn’t necessarily associate that with great elusiveness, but Robinson has the explosive cutting ability to make defenders miss consistently.
Here against the Bills, Robinson takes the ball on a run inside, again from the shotgun. The Commanders get a couple of double teams inside on the defensive tackles and leave the defensive end on Robinson’s side unblocked as a read-option key for Sam Howell. The defender initially looks like he’s going to crash on Robinson’s run, but at the last second he pauses his feet and adjusts to Howell, thinking he might keep it. Howell then hands the ball off and Robinson swiftly carries the ball to the left side of the line behind his double teams.
As he gets there, he spots an incoming defender from the secondary without any blockers available to account for him. Robinson could probably take on the tackle and possible break through it, but with the unblocked defensive end playing for the quarterback keep, he spots a huge lane on the back side of the run. We once again see Robinson’s sharp and explosive cutting ability to cut the run back away from the unblocked defender on the left side of the line. He then gets into the open field where he is met by another defensive back. He once again makes a sharp cut to get vertical and makes two defenders miss in the process. At that point he looks to get as much yards as possible as he stays vertical and powers his way down the field before he’s eventually tripped up for another 20+ yard gain.
Now these were things we knew Robinson was capable of when he was drafted. He did these sorts of things all the time at Alabama so they shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Where we’ve seen growth from Robinson is the other parts of his game. As a runner, Robinson wasn’t the most natural zone scheme back. With his ability to make explosive jump cuts and bounce from one side of the line to the other, he didn’t always display the traits needed in the zone scheme to patiently press the run to the play side, force the defense to overflow and create a cutback lane before then making a single cut and getting vertical. This year, he’s shown good progress as a zone runner.
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