Bijan Robinson, Atlanta Falcons bully ‘shell-shocked’ Buffalo Bills | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

Bijan Robinson, Atlanta Falcons bully ‘shell-shocked’ Buffalo Bills | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

Every time I hear y Raheem Morris describe Bejan Robinson as the best player in football, you know what I think? Add another zero to that next contract. Because listen, I I learned long ago from a seasoned personnel executive, do not publicly hype your own players until you’ve gotten them to sign their next contract. After they sign their contract, say it all you want, but if you say it beforehand, they’re gonna I don’t know that they still have laminating machines. They’re going to print it out. They’re going to laminate it. They’re going to hand it to you when it’s time to negotiate. You You know what’s funny about that is I feel like agents send all of those things to players. Like obviously that one’s in the locker room, but there were times even when I was on New England that coach Bellich would go in his press conference and he might say something about me overall as a player. And I just remember my agent like sending the transcript or sending a screenshot of somebody posting it to me to just kind of keep in record of all right, when this contract comes up, we’re going to continuously bring these things back up. And that was also a unique situation because their head coach was kind of your GM. So, it was like the perfect mix. But I agree with you. I mean, we all know Bejian Robinson’s going to get paid, but I think people start to forget of we always think like that person wants to be the highest paid in their position, but Bean Robinson now is going to start to fall into the I want to be the highest paid non-quarterback type of stuff because of what he’s doing on the field. Like, the guy is dynamic and they’re using him in so many different ways. So, Bejian, keep doing what you’re doing. Get paid, young man. Get paid. Yeah, he’s in his third year. He’ll be eligible for a new deal as soon as this regular season ends. And he is incredible. And it was great for the Falcons to have another prime time platform. They had an overall more, I don’t want to say impressive because they suffocated the Vikings, but I think it’s a bigger deal to take on a team that had been the entirety of the off season the Super Bowl favorite. And we’re still lingering at the top of the odds before last night. After last night, who knows? But the Falcons take him down 24 to 14. And Bjan Robinson, he had that 81yd touchdown run where just kind of like shot out of a cannon. And and I know he gets bottled up every once in a while. Barry Sanders did too. But it’s almost like he gets nine yards like that. Like he takes two steps and he’s gained nine yards. It’s just amazing the explosion through the hole. And there’s the long run. And he did a great job staying in bounds, shaking off a wouldbe tackler, and off he went to the races. He he he’s on pace to set and I know we’re only six games in. We have 11 to go. He’s on pace to set the single season record for yards from scrimmage. And he he was phenomenal. I mean, he’s had a couple of Rico Dao games. And I don’t know that we are noticing because we expect it from him and we don’t expect it from Rico Dao. Yeah. Whenever I see him make whether it’s that play, but even some of the jump cuts and cuts he makes when he doesn’t have these huge plays, I just think back to Saquon Barkley praising Bejian Robinson, his cutting ability. And when you hear that, I think everyone was like, “Saquon, like you’re Sequin, like like what do you mean?” But then you watch Bejon Robinson, the ability to, like you just said, be bottled up for five plays in a row and then out of nowhere, he breaks one tackle. It looks like three guys are going to get him and he makes one jump cut to the other side of the line of scrimmage and then he’s just gone. And I I think one of the things that stuck out and I’m sure Atlanta came in and said, “We need to bully this team. We need to bully him in the run game. We need to bully him on the defensive front. And that’s what stuck out to me. When you want to come out and bully a team, you need a running back that’s not going to just get two yards, three yards, get just only what you block. Like bullying a team comes from your offensive line getting on a guy, driving him back four or five yards down off the ball and then your running backs creating big plays. And I thought the first drive was obvious of that when you saw Tyler Aier as he’s running into the end zone, Rap is the only guy left and instead of like making a cut and trying to spin, he just runs right over him and scores. And that was an indication of really what the game was. It was just a man amongst boys for the whole Atlanta team of just going out there and saying, “Look, this is how we want to play football, Monday Night Football. We’re going to let the world know.” And I thought that was big for Atlanta because if you remember a few weeks ago it was Zack Robinson comes down to the field they let go to Ike Hillyard the receiver coach like a lot was going on where everybody was like what’s going on with this offense. A performance like that Monday night against the Buffalo Bills kind of answers a lot of questions. Well, you know, and it’s almost Devin like they they they sat down and they broke down the entirety of the Buffalo Bills season so far and they realized we can’t we can we can bully this team. They had the extra time. They had the by-week and they go to work on the Bills and they watch the various Bills games and they watch how the Bills play and they’re like, “You know what? We can we can just push these guys around. Let’s go do it.” And you develop a confidence because the players like, “Well, they’re the Buffalo Bills.” Like, we’re gonna we’re gonna bully the Buffalo Bills. Yeah. Here, watch this play. Here, watch this play. Look at this guy. Look how he and and there it just unfolds. And, you know, I’m I’m so big on quarterback demeanor during a game. Josh Allen looked shell shocked the whole night like and he seemed kind of off and he was doing things that we’re not and you know he sometimes sometimes he tries to do things that not even he can do like that flip pass on fourth down that just badly missed the receiver he was trying to get it to but he just kind of looked bewildered I think would be the best word for how he was last night every time they cut to him like this isn’t supposed to happen we’re the Buffalo Bills and And Josh Allen, the reigning MVP, has now lost in back-to-back weeks to guys who were drafted in the first round last year, Drake May and Michael Penn Jr. That’s not supposed to happen. Last night in that Bills game was a that’s not supposed to happen night. And I think the Bills are having a hard time processing that they’ve gone from 4-0 to 4-2. Just like the Eagles, 4-0 to 4-2. The two teams that we would have had pencileled in after four weeks as the eventual Super Bowl participants are a combined 0 and4 in week five and week six. And and I agree with you. think that’s what made the Atlanta win special because what we often see in the NFL is like the great teams or the great quarterbacks, there’s always usually a statistic that comes up is how what is their record after a loss or after two and for Atlanta playing the Buffalo Bills after losing last week’s Sunday Night Football to the New England Patriots. I think the expectation was ah this is tough for Atlanta. Like if Buffalo would have won last week, maybe they could have caught him sleeping, but you’re like, man, the Patriots go up and and beat him in like this is this is going to be rough for him and they still go and get the win. And I think a part of Josh Allen’s frustrations are all of these injuries are starting to catch up with Buffalo. It’s like every other game there’s an injury. Matt Milano comes back last week, then he’s out this week, then Terrell Bernard goes down, Josh Palmer goes down after having a early uh early in the game a big catch on a deep ball. And I think that feeling for Josh Allen of all right, I gotta start to make some plays. I I felt like you could see it seeping in a little bit from sitting down there and talking to him last week and him talking about the everybody eats mentality and having so many different guys that you know can make plays, but you start to lose those guys. Curtis Samuel didn’t play, Dalton Concade didn’t play. the normal guys that you’ve been thrown to all training camp, all throughout the early part of the season, they start to kind of trickle out and you got new guys in there and then some of those guys get banged up. It just creates, I think, this pressure from the quarterback position of if I don’t make the play, how else do we win? Like, I got to go and will it to happen? And we always talk about that the great quarterbacks will things to happen. But I think for Buffalo, it’s a key moment in the season right now of how healthy can they get? How can they get the guys they want on the field because if not, we’re seeing a defense that’s worn down, a defense that is already small and now and also dealing with injuries. Uh it could be tough sledding for for Buffalo uh coming off this game Monday night. You look at the receptions last night, only 15 completions on 26 attempts. a very low passer rating for Josh Allen of 72.6. It felt like they didn’t have many opportunities and when they got them, they couldn’t make it work. They got momentum back after that that play at the end of the half that looked like a touchdown that looked like the back breaker that would have made it 28-7. That’s what wiped off the board because Drake London stepped out of bounds right before he went inside the pylon. The Bills score a touchdown to start the third quarter and all of a sudden here we go and after that the Falcons just put the clamps on them. The Bills couldn’t get anything going and the Falcons chewed up enough of the clock and left the Bills with few enough opportunities that they couldn’t make it happen. But I mean Devin Khil Shir three catches 33 yards. Shavers three for 27. Keon Coleman whatever happened to Keon Coleman I thought he was on the verge of breaking out. He had three catches for 11 yards. So, it just was a disappointing passing performance for a team that needs its passing game. And it waited too long to really get to James Cook. And if the passing game’s not there, they should have just been pounding James Cook last night. They got their own Bjon Robinson. Not that Cook and Robinson are on the same plane, but Cook’s pretty close. And it took him a while to get to Cook and then once they did, it started to work, but then they got away from it. It’s almost like they they thought that they were one play away from changing everything. You know, you get that that sense of desperation sometimes from teams with franchise quarterbacks. We’re just one play away from everything going our way and they’re they’re searching for that one play and that one play never happens. Floyd, I think you hit it. When when you have guys that make magic with the ball in their hands, I think you start to kind of turn into just keep let me just keep getting the ball in his hands. Let me just make sure he has the ball. He’ll make the play. He’ll make the play. I thought Atlanta did an unbelievable job of making sure we didn’t get the classic Josh Allen scramble like that back breaker scramble that gets the team going. Whether it was blitz calls, whether it was just having five down linemen, they always made sure they had enough to bottle them up and keep them in the pocket. I thought their third down pressures, Jeff Albbrick, I thought he what he drew up made it really tough for Buffalo to get anything going on third down. And one of the key things is what you just talked about. I would love to be able to go back and watch this film and see what was it with Keon Coleman. You know, Dan Arloski talked about why they weren’t getting Keon Coleman opposite of AJ Terrell, but I think that’s a tough thing when you go into a game. You might have some plays designed up to get away from a certain corner. But when your best guy can’t go out there and get open against their best guy and and that’s the the problem for your offense, it’s going to be tough sledding. when you go against some of these teams that have two guys or they create a game plan to kind of double with one guy and put their best guy opposite. I think I would love to go back and see why couldn’t they get Keon Coleman uh involved more? But that’s the thing too with Buffalo of are we going to now let James Cook? Is he going to initiate the offense? Are we going to say we’re going to build this around him to start every game or get him the ball running the ball, throwing him the ball? because he is probably the biggest mismatch for that team. So when you start to lose players, how can you get him the ball more? You look here, only 17 carries, but average five yards a carry. You kind of sit there and say, man, it it seems like they could have got him involved more because the late field goal makes it a two-score game. But for a while it was 214 anybody’s game. Buffalo trying to strike and get back, but it just kept coming up. Third and long situations, Atlanta would get the pressure. they would do something to take away the Buffalo Bills offense and get them off the field. And that’s what kind of killed them all night. So, it it was one of those games where I think game planwise, you couldn’t get what you initially thought and it just took too long to get to something else to help your team win the football game. Yeah. It just got demoralizing after a while cuz watching the game, I kept thinking, okay, the Bills will get another opportunity and this time they’ll make it click. and then they didn’t and okay, they’ll get another opportunity and this time they’ll make it click and then they and then they didn’t and at a certain point it’s like they’re running out of opportunities. There was the block field goal, right? That that felt like, okay, this is the this is the one. This is where it changes. This is where it flips their way and and it just didn’t. And and then the back breaker was the the field goal that put Atlanta up by 10. And it just, you know, and like my first thought was, oh, Josh Allen can do this. It’s like, man, you know, they got no timeouts. They got to get three and they got to get seven or seven and then three. It just didn’t happen. And they were moving down toward the goal line, tip, pass, intercepted, night. That was it. It was just It’s just weird to see. And I say this every year, whenever we think we have the NFL figured out, we find out that we don’t. Yeah. Everybody is getting jumbled together right now. And we’re spoiled by having that reliability. It’s like an old blanket of the teams that we know are great. Like who who’s great? Who’s great right now? You know, my top two teams in the power ranking is going to be the Buccaneers and the Colts. And that’s all subject to change, right? Where are the great teams? And we see a changing of the guard, too, with some of the best players in the NFL. Saquon Barkley, no. Lean Robinson. Now Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, no Drake May, Michael Penn, Baker Mayfield. Now Patrick Mahomes is still Patrick Mahomes, but it’s just weird to see receivers Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase. No, Puka Nakua, Jackson Smith, and Jigba. It’s it’s just strange, Devin, to see this kind of unfolding before our eyes. so much of this change, you know, we want the NFL to feel wide open and then we make ourselves think it isn’t and I think it makes it harder to process when it is because we we like that familiarity because we think it especially from my perspective when I got to pick the freaking games every week. I want to be able to know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I I’m I’m on like a streak of nine straight losses in prime time. I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen. And part of me loves it, but part of me hates it because I don’t know what’s going to happen. And people expect me to know, hey, who’s going to win tonight? I got no idea. Watch the game and find out. That’s going to be my standard answer from now on. It’s true. I think I think especially with some of these games, I look back to when Minnesota and Atlanta played Sunday Night Football and we’re like, “Oh, JJ McCarthy had this great second half. Oh, they’re going to get rolling.” Then you watch this game, you watch, you know, Buffalo and Atlanta, you’re like, “Okay, we know what to expect and we’ll hit it later on.” But even Chicago and Washington, you’re like, Jayen Daniels is, you know, NFC Championship game last year. He’s going to come out uh Monday Night Football State his claim, you know, should have been drafted over K. all of these storylines are bubbling in our head and it doesn’t work out that way. And I think what you just said is so true of what you see happen is teams start to dominate year after year after year. Why it’s so special to look at the Kansas City Chiefs or the New England Patriots from years ago is every team the whole off season they start to scheme how to beat you and then somebody goes out there and plays well. Whether it’s you have a great defense and an offense, you know, comes out and dices you up or you have this amazing quarterback and it gets bottled up for two games by somebody, everyone copies that blueprint. But they don’t just copy it. They study how their team matches up. Which player can fill this role? Which player can fill that role? And when you can overcome that year after year after year and still go out there and win games, it shows how much you’re putting in, what your guys are doing to develop, how you’re staying on top of it from a front office standpoint of bringing in players and make you better. And what we’re seeing right now is it feels like some of these teams are catching on and figuring out how to be good and how to come and and play against those better teams. So when you talk about a Baker Mayfield or a Daniel Jones leading the Colts and the Bucks, you look and you say these teams, well the Bucks have been good. They’ve just been right below the kind of cusp of getting over the top. The Colts have been building slowly and you see how they built when they went in the draft, who they’re trying to get, how they’re trying to build this team. And I think what people have to to start to realize is teams are starting to be built to beat other teams. And that’s what you have to do. So, if you see a team that’s dominating and they’re playing at a high level, you can’t just sit in a dungeon and say, “This is what I think makes a team good.” No, you have to build teams to beat those teams. And I think we might be starting to see that change. There’s enough good young quarterbacks that they’re going to start to be like, “Man, I’m I’m tired of being listed. Baker Mayfield, I’m tired of being listed under those top four guys. I’m as good as those top four guys. Put my name in that category.” And we’re seeing that. And you know, it’s unfortunate what’s happening with Dallas’s defense because Dak Prescott is having that type of year at the quarterback position as well to put his name in that in that discussion that if his defense was just half, you know, half as good as the offense, we would be sitting here saying, man, the Cowboys look damn good and they’re whatever, you know, 4 and two or something like that. But their defense is so bad that we’re not seeing it for another quarterback that’s playing tremendous football. Hi, it’s Mike Florio. Thanks for watching PFT on YouTube.

Mike Florio and Devin McCourty recap the Atlanta Falcons’ impressive win over the Buffalo Bills, spearheaded by Bijan Robinson’s incredible performance on Monday night. #NBCSports #NFL #ProFootballTalk #AtlantaFalcons
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Bijan Robinson, Atlanta Falcons bully ‘shell-shocked’ Buffalo Bills | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC
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