Bijan Robinson: The Art of the Juke

Bijan Robinson: The Art of the Juke

The art of the juke. Here’s Robinson. Nice cut back. Robinson accelerated. Robinson. He’s got a hand. Davis is Robinson. Wo. Will move. Makes a man miss. I tell you, look, he’s going to do it for many people. He’s going to put Joy Sports Center just like that. Robinson breaking free. Boy, he has so much make you miss ability. There’s a guy in Atlanta that wears number seven. He’s tough to deal with. Boy, you a dog, boy. You’re an animal dog. Hey, don’t let nobody stop you, boy. Going to pitch it to I think John’s the next great one. And there’s nobody who’s able to cut like B. The first dangerous Robinson shows the quickness and the power in one run. I knew that God gave me a gift to like to juke people out and to do all my moves that I do. Like just how I see it is, you know, when when I react, I I really play off reactions. So, I’m a big reactive guy. Like, I don’t I don’t set anything up. I don’t wait for defenders to, you know, come in my vision. I I just it just goes all off of reaction. First started playing tackle football at 7 years old. I played flag football for like a year and you know it was it wasn’t really juking. It was more just me like running straight just using my speed blowing past kids. But then go baby first play they were like all right let’s see like let’s see what he got. There was two defenders that like came just like right across uh the middle and I saw them immediately and they just came in my square and I just like jked them out both at the same time. Everybody was like going crazy. Everybody was like what? Like all the kids were like, “No way.” Like after practice, he came and uh he’s like, “Be I’ve never seen that move from a kid before. We’re going to play you at running back. Come on. Come on. The first time I ever said, “Wow, watching watching Bon’s film was watching a South Point Catholic film.” I just got to Oregon State. we’re looking at running backs and um our O line coach had came over from University of Arizona and so he spent a lot of time obviously in that Tucson area and he had kind of mentioned Lean pulled this film up looked at him I was like man this kid’s really special and really what you saw was a guy that was extremely gifted and had a natural ability with the ball in his hands and can manipulate defenders um especially at that high school level and put guys in a conflict um different than really what you see most high school players do. All the way. All the way. All the way. All the way. Any great runner is going to have great eye discipline. And and I say runner and really any great professional football player is going to have great eye discipline. And ultimately your eyes are going to put your feet in the right position to make the play. Jean is really unique in the sense that he has a really good blend of like strength, speed, and power. So, you know, when you look at the data around accelerations or change of directions, there’s large magnitudes of ground reaction forces that happen. And so, it takes a unique uh development of strength and rate of force development, which he has that physical ability behind him. And then on top of that, he has elite breakaway speed. Alien. Alien. You know, any coach would be sitting here lying saying, “Man, all my drill work is the reason this young man is doing what he’s doing.” Like, you’d be lying to yourself. if he’d be lying to everybody. Was going through that like that was crazy. I I watched like 10 times from the sideline. You watch him, you kind of have an idea. Okay, hey, this is how this thing should play out. Trying to Oh my goodness. And you know, I always go back to the clip against Green Bay, his rookie year. 40 45 Ban across midfield. All right, so right here, I was looking at this dude’s eyes. Like I was looking right at him and he was looking right at me. And typically like he thought he had the angle, but if you see his body position like he’s he’s thinking I’m going to continue to keep going outside so he can chase me and then he can get that tackle right there. As soon as I caught the ball, I saw I was looking past him. I was looking past the next defender and I was already looking at the third level defender. Falcons on the toss. It’s Robinson. A couple of nice moves out across the 45 and still going. It was a simple wide zone play, but you just saw a guy at a very young age already understand, okay, this is how I can manipulate the defense. Cuz ultimately, if you understand defense, which that’s our job. We teach him those things. Well, he understands those guys want to keep leverage. And so, if I can threaten that guy’s leverage and keep him moving, well, ultimately now I understand where I want to go. And so, like I said, I think he’s just continuing to get better and better at that as he’s continuing to get better at being a wide zone runner. From a physical standpoint, he checks a lot of boxes as an elite level performer. Now in addition to that we can then look at the other bucket which is more of the technical side and he has a unbelievable ability to be technically sound in terms of getting to appropriate positions and angles to be able to make these cuts and change of directions that facilitate being as elusive as he is. Give it to him bounces inside the 10. Keeps his feet at the top. Fjon with the mustard touchdown. And then I would say on top of that, maybe not addressed nearly as much is his cognitive ability on the field. So when we think about the physical standpoints, that’s great and that’s that kind of anchor, but really he’s an elite level decision maker in terms of setting up and anticipating what’s going to happen on the field by manipulating them with your eyes, um, your hips, and then obviously you got to, you know, set up moves in between to make them react a certain way. It’s all happening in split seconds. Like I’m I’m making it all happen right away. One thing we always talk about, hey, we want to deliver the second level players to the offensive line by being able to put them and staying on our track. And so he’s got done an unbelievable job of continuing to get better at that. And and then ultimately our job, right, you say, “Hey, I’ll get you to the first kind of second level.” And then third level, that’s when you get to take over making these decisions readily from where your offensive line is set to where the play is supposed to flow to looking maybe peripherally at your options in terms of making those decisions. And I’d say the these decisions happen unbelievably quickly. And so when you pair someone who can close that loop and make those decisions as fast as he can and choose the quote unquote right decision more often than the other guy on top of his elite level to accelerate and decelerate. I mean you got a problem right there. Here’s Robinson. He’ll get the first down. 40 35 30 Banan 25 20 15 10 5 touchdown Atlanta. Oh boy. Right side through the first wall around the corner. Here goes Bashan Robinson. keeps his feet. 30 25 20 10 5 touchdown Atlanta. Oh my goodness. Out of pistol. Bean Robinson running left through a tackle. Robinson accelerating and there goes Robinson. Robinson. First down and four. Oh, Bon Robinson midfield. 40 35 30 25 20 10 5 strike up the band. Oh, he did it. He took it to the house. Here’s Robinson. And Robinson, boy, he has so much make you miss ability. Shovel. Robinson calling off his hip and he scores. Standing with the shovel pass. Oh my. He pinned it on his back hip. Are you kidding me? Unbelievable. A lot of guys, they call it the dead leg. Like that’s that’s what the move’s called. It’s called the dead leg. It’s a It’s kind of a hard move to perfect. Like I’m still trying to perfect it. Uh like people always ask me like, “How did you perfect the dead leg?” And I’m like, “Bro, like I’m still working on it. Still trying to get better at it.” He’s got Robinson and he’s got all the space in the world to walk in for a touchdown. Making a defender think you’re going one way and then sending him another way. A lot of guys struggle with that cuz it just changes direction. But, you know, with that, it’s like with this play, you know, he he thought I was going right and nope. Then I then I went right back to the left and then that’s how like you make a lot of guys miss. But it it’s it’s really manipulation. That’s that’s the whole part of the game. Out in space and he made the first guy miss. Put a move on Robinson. He’s got a hand. His first down touchdown. Holy smokes. My heavens. I I can break tackles. Like you can do all that stuff, but the juke is something that’s so hard to anticipate as a defender. And when you do it right, then you have a lot of defenders. They they don’t sprint at you anymore. They they they hesitate quickly. And this is Robinson. Whoa. Will move. Makes a man miss. Look, it’s happened to us all at some point in time. And just look at this. He’s going to do it to many people. He’s going to put you on Sports Center just like that. That’s my goal is to to make you hesitate, to make you think a lot. Cuz when I’m when I’m making you think on the field, then you’re not playing at your at your maximum ability. Running the right side. He’ll hit the cut back. 30 25 Robinson 20 10 five. Touchdown Atlanta. What a run. Look at the black shirts laying all over the turf. Situational awareness. Yes, sir. Yep. Robinson off the right side breaks free. John Robinson spinning down the sideline. Still going. Can they catch him? They cannot. Touchdown. Falcons 81 yds. Enjoy it Atlanta fans cuz probably seeing the number one guy in the league right now. You know there’s like some people who are just born to be a certain athlete. Like you have certain people who were born to be basketball players such as LeBron. You have people who were born to be football players. he goes out there and it’s like art. So, it’s like it’s it’s amazing to see and then two just the person he is is he’s all around stud. I keep saying it. He the best player in football. my my grandma, she has like all all everybody’s Instagram from all the Falcons teams. Like she sent me that immediately and she’s like, “Did you see this?” And I was like, this was like 5 minutes until it was posted. I was like, “Yo.” I was like, “This is crazy.” Just went berserk. Um like it went completely viral. I think like it’s cool because you know there’s so many creativities in and what I do on the field. You can you can see your arc that you do including the juke um just in in a different angle. See that’s why this overhead shot is so crazy cuz you can you can see in detail like every move that I was making on that on that second. And I mean it’s just something that everybody loves to to to watch and enjoy. Well, we talk about again all these physical metrics, you know, uh the ability to be elusive has that whole cognitive side and there’s also a style to it, right? So, the way he chooses to plant his foot, decelerate and reacelerate, the way he chooses to set up a defender is different than how other players do it. So, it’s his own athlete signature in terms how he demonstrates those processes and those physical outputs. The art in it is when you’re able to watch, you know, 6 foot, 222 lb elite athlete manipulate his body and have the flexibility with his ankles, knees, hips to put his body and contort his body in all different angles that that a lot of us would hurt ourselves trying to put our bodies in those positions. That in itself is an art, right? To be able to do that. But then to be able to do that at full speed while you have 11 guys on the other side trying to attack you and then be able to be explosive strong enough and have the courage to do some of those things and try. I think that’s the art. There’s so much that goes into doing that. A lot of guys get downhill, boom, get you a dirty six yards and it’s a good run. But then when you do some of the things that he does and just does it naturally, that’s when you kind of sit back and you watch it like, man, this kid special. on the toss. Robinson running hard. Oo, still going. Banan Robinson. Whatever I can do, you know, having control in in my body, having control in, you know, what I’m trying to do on the field with my eyes. As soon as I see it, it’s game time. So, that’s that’s what the art of the juke means to me. And it’s one of the moves that, you know, you can’t you can’t really teach. You just got to just use your instinct and your reaction skills and your god-given talents. And there you have it.

The juke does not belong to nor was it derived from one specific player. It’s a running technique that has evolved over time to evade defenders. But no one pulls off the modern adaptation of the move more elusively than Bijan Robinson.

Bijan Robinson presents: The Art of the Juke.

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@AtlantaFalcons

#AtlantaFalcons #RiseUp #NFL #Falcons