Darius Robinson Might Be The Arizona Cardinals Version Of Micah Parsons Or TJ Watt | Ben Garcia Show

But let’s start here. A couple of I guess I Yeah, I guess a couple of days ago at this point last week when it initially happened, but we weren’t on the air, Walter Nolan went down. And when that happened, I felt like the Cardinals defensive line took a huge blow. It wasn’t Jordan Burch. It wasn’t Baron Browning, who’s also starting to look good in camp. It wasn’t players of that nature where you weren’t asking them to come in and save the position. I know there’s this argument to be made that is Walter Nolan there to save the position. Is Walter Nolan just there to be a key of the defensive pie, especially on the pass rushing side of things? And that’s not really where I landed. I felt like when you spend a first round pick on someone like Walter Nolan, you expect him to come in and not be dominant right away. This is a rookie we’re talking about, but someone that gives you solid defensive line snaps. And when he went down, it felt like there was a lot of pressure on Darius Robinson to really seize the moment and be the first round pick that we expected last year. However, you were concerned about what that jump would look like because he only played six games last year and didn’t necessarily fill up the stat sheet when he did. So, I believe he his first game of the season was against the Vikings last year in like week 11, week 12 and that just wasn’t good enough for him. But now you’ve seen what Walter, but now you see what Darius Robinson has done since the Walter Nolan injury and even before then. And I kind of feel a little dumb. I don’t know why I overreacted to the Walter Nolan thing. It’s not like he’s out for the year. It’s a calf injury that’s going to keep him out a significant amount of time just because I look at the Darius Robinson injury from last year and I feel the exact same way. Let’s go from this angle. I was at I I haven’t been at training camp this year. It’s just really tough to do while working a nineto-five job doing this locked on Suns and the locked on Cardinal squad show. I would still be there if it was possible, but it’s probably just not going to happen uh this year. However, and that being on the training camp sidelines, maybe I show up as a fan, and if that’s the case, come say what’s up. Come say hi. You guys have been doing that in bunches recently, and it’s really cool. I would love to sit there and talk with you guys. So, if you see me out in that sort of public space, let me know. However, Darius Robinson from my time at training camp last year, one of the reasons why I do why it sucks to miss training camp as a media member standing on the sidelines is because there’s that scuttlebutt on the sidelines. you’re able to pick the brains of other media members and you all are using not just your your own eyes but the collective eyes of the media to look at the players and be like, “Oh, that guy can’t play. Oh, that guy could like last year the talk on the sidelines with my guys Donnie Duan, Bo Brock, Tyler Drake, all those guys.” It was, “Wow, Trey Benson looks a little lost. Wow, Desmond Ritter looks awful. And damn, Darius Robinson looks really good. And now in year two, things have kind of changed. Trey Benson has looked really good or ever since like week 10 of last year. But that’s not the point. Darius Robinson already looked like a herculean athlete moving guys out of the way as a youngster, as a rookie. And then you saw the OTAAS, the mini camp, the pictures of Darius Robinson coming into camp and he looks like a completely different person. a transformed body. He looks like a Greek god and now he’s moving guys away at will. Yesterday on the yesterday on the Cardinal squad show that we do at 600 p.m. Tuesday and Thursdays, Jal Douglas, former offensive lineman in the NFL had mentioned, well, it takes a little bit of time for offensive linemen to get their feet under him. You cannot set you cannot simulate real NFL snaps. But still, I’m watching Darius Robinson push guys like Yoda Frolt and Isaiah Adams and Evan Brown. All at least Evan Brown and Yoda Frhalt we know are solid offensive linemen. And uh that being the case with uh Isaiah Adams as well. And it got me thinking, man, is the offensive line in trouble? That’s how good Darius Robinson has looked over uh the last couple of weeks. And that’s exactly where you want to see Darius Robinson be. And then it got me thinking to this point. I was someone who kept on talking about the Cardinals need to go out and go get Trey Hendrickson, Micah Parsons, uh Mason Mason Crosby, Max Crosby. Uh, whenever there was a bigname guy, TJ Watt, the Cardinals need to go get that guy because I felt like the only thing the Cardinals defense was missing was that blue chip pass rusher that could get to the quarterback at will. But you’re seeing how well Darius Robinson has been performing and you say to yourself, well maybe Monty Austin for and Jonathan Ganon didn’t want to go get Max Crosby or TJ Watt or Micah Parsons, Trey Hendrickson because they felt like you guys think we need that guy, but we know we don’t. We saw what we had in Darius Robinson last year and the defensive line would have been a lot better from weeks one through 11 and then 11 through 17 if Darius Robinson was fully healthy and had his feet under him. They knew that last year all the media members kept on asking and peppering questions to Jonathan Ganon, hey, what are you going to do about the pass rush? Hey, what are you going to do about the pass rush? And JG said, you guys think it’s a problem? We don’t. And by that point they had Darius Robinson and Bio Gelari. So things would have looked a little different. And so now I say to myself, what if trading for Trey Hendrickson and Micah Parsons and TJ Watt and Max Crosby when they were available, what if that was always what if that would have always been a mistake and Monty Austin and Jonathan Ganon both knew that? What if Darius Robinson is this team’s blue chip pass rusher and you look at the statistics, you look at what he’s doing in training camp and you say to yourself, you can line him up kind of anywhere. He’s more of an interior pass rusher, although he did rush on the outside in Missouri as well, but you say to yourself, could he be the blue chip pass rusher the Cardinals need? And if Darius Robinson is even threearters of a blue chip pass rusher, you are talking about the Cardinals defense being a top five defense in the NFL. Because that’s the only thing this defense is missing. Someone that can get to the quarterback at will 11 and a half plus times a year. Someone that the opposing offense has to call out and say, “We have to block. we have to uh uh throw a chip his way or double team this guy or knock him on his ass with the running back coming out of the back field. Again, a chip. If they have that guy, and I think there’s a real possibility and an argument to say they do, the Cardinals are going to have a top five defense this year. Even with the loss of Starling Thomas, you still feel good about Will Johnson, Garrett Williams, who now potentially could be on the outside as well. You can run more three safety sets if uh uh because Starling Thomas is out for the year, you can run rabbit Taylor Demerson out there or Robert Taylor Demerson and Buddha Baker and Jaylen Thompson out there in three safety sets. Will Johnson, Garrett Williams, and then you just have a revolving door of pass rushers. A lot of the season defensively does rest on the shoulders of Darius Robinson, you continue to forget that he was a firstround pick for the Cardinals, but he was so overshadowed by Marvin Harrison Jr. being the fourth overall pick that you just assume that he was a later round guy. he can change everything for the Cardinals defensively. If opposing offenses need to scheme up a way to uh to take him out of games that is just going to benefit Josh Sweat, Baron Browning, who’s looked really good in camp, Jordan Burch, Dvin Tomlinson, Kas Campbell, Walter Nolan when he comes back. And then if the Cardinals go from a top half pass rush in the NFL to a top 12 pass rush in the NFL, combined with the fact that they have one of the better secondaries in the NFL, the defense is going to do exactly what it did last year. And it’s going to be carry the offense and it’s going to be carry the offense led by a guy in Darius Robinson. And you look at some of the blue chip guys that I wanted before, Max and or Max Crosby and Micah Parsons and Trey Hendrickson and TJ Watt. It would have been a mistake to go get those guys. Give up valuable draft capital when you feel like you already have him in Darius Robinson who’s versatile, can rush the inside, can rush the outside, and he genuinely is the straw that stirs the drink of the Cardinals defense.

The Arizona Cardinals are in the thick of camp and they already have players standing out for all the right reasons. Plus, they might’ve just found their blue chip pass rusher in Darius Robinson!

Socials:

X:
https://x.com/BenGarciaShow

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/bengarciashow/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/benjamin.garcia.180

TikTok:

@bengarciashow

1 comment
Leave a Reply