His edge cuts deep
Nice guy Allen Robinson can turn in a hurry, which is one reason he’s great
“He can be that savage if you want him to.”
— Bears wide receiver Anthony Miller
Allen Robinson shed the professional cloak for a few moments earlier this month in London.
The Bears wide receiver had just caught his second touchdown pass against the Raiders, a 16-yard, back-shoulder jump ball from Chase Daniel to put the Bears up 21-17 after a miserable start.
He barely paused before launching the football high into the stands at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, fixating the crowd with a piercing stare as if he were a superhero with lasers beaming from his eyes. As the many Bears fans in attendance roared at the comeback, Robinson bounced toward his teammates to celebrate and jogged off the field — his self-possession intact again.
The deeper Robinson gets into his strong second season with the Bears, the more he shows the fierce competitiveness that boils underneath his mature approach to the game.
The 26-year-old wide receiver is the MVP of the Bears offense through six games, with 41 catches for 464 yards and three touchdowns — on pace for 109 catches and 1,237 yards. He has been the only consistently good part of a unit whose coach and quarterback have flopped in their second season together. But that hasn’t dampened what offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich calls “an unbelievable edge” that is “the X-factor that most people don’t get to see.”
“I’m a very competitive person — that could be up 20 or down 20,” Robinson said. “As long as I’m in between those lines, I’m playing and trying to make plays. It doesn’t matter the scoreboard; I’m not playing against the scoreboard. I’m not playing against the clock. I’m playing play to play, trying to be the best player I can be every play.”
That attitude is carrying Robinson through the Bears’ fog into what could be the best season statistically of his career.
For the Bears to turn their season around, they’ll need more help from other players on offense — but they’ll also need Robinson to continue his dominating play.
‘Don’t press his buttons’
The Bears mic’d up Robinson for the Sept. 29 win against the Vikings, and the edgiest moment came after he caught a pass against cornerback Xavier Rhodes.
“That’s what I like,” Robinson said as he popped up. “That’s what we like. That’s what we like.”
Most of the rest of the video was Robinson grunting as he tried to get past defenders and make catches — not exactly a window into the passion his coaches and teammates tout.
“They didn’t cut it how they were supposed to,” Robinson protested. “There was some trash-talking going on actually that game, probably the most of the year.
“After that game, I was pretty excited to see the mic’d up. But they kept it PG. … I’ll try to get the director’s cut after the season.”
Perhaps a better mic’d-up moment would have been late in Sunday’s loss to the Saints at Soldier Field.
Robinson wouldn’t say what rookie safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson did earlier in the game — it went beyond him and another Saints player mocking Tarik Cohen’s height — but Robinson wasn’t having it.
After he burned Gardner-Johnson for a 7-yard touchdown catch from Mitch Trubisky to cut the Bears’ deficit to 18 points, Robinson ran up behind the defensive back and yelled as Bears teammates Adam Shaheen and Javon Wims stood in between.
“I guess getting under my skin is a good way to say it,” Robinson said. “One thing I’m big on, I respect the game (and) I respect my opponents, no matter how much goes into the game. At that point in time in the game, I felt disrespected. That’s where I was at with it. I’m not going out there going out of my way to disrespect anybody, so once I feel disrespected a line has been crossed, and that’s what happened Sunday.”
Robinson took some heat on Twitter for trash-talking while the Bears were losing big, and he jumped in the conversation, telling a Packers reporter to “Keep my name out ya mouth” and arguing that a local reporter didn’t understand his competitiveness. He said he felt it was a normal Twitter interaction, not much different than the former basketball player’s frequent comments on the NBA.
“I talk to people, no matter what they say, when it comes to sports, when it comes to food,” Robinson said. “It may be taken as negative, but I’m just responding to something that’s on Twitter, just like I do when I’m talking about pancakes or French toast. It’s all the same thing, just about football.”
The fire Robinson — a French toast guy— showed Sunday is no secret to anybody who has watched him compete from the time he was a kindergartner growing up in the Detroit area with the goal of becoming a professional athlete. Last year, former Penn State roommate Adrian Amos detailed how video games would sometimes devolve into wrestling matches — or endless replays until Robinson got the result he wanted.
“Just don’t press his buttons, man,” Bears wide receiver Anthony Miller said. “He can turn into that guy real quick. He’s a nice guy, but he can be that savage if you want him to.”
Robinson admitted again this week he always has been a sore loser — and a sore winner — a product of competing in football and basketball at a high level since he was a kid.
“It was great because I turned out very good, but looking back at it, there was a lot thrust upon me, being thrown into such a competitive environment at such a young age,” Robinson said. “Sometimes looking back at it, I laugh, but at the same time I’m like, ‘Wow, I know exactly why I am how I am from a competitive nature because that’s all I’ve known from 5 years old.’ ”
It’s an edge that, when properly channeled, could help the Bears with their recent difficulties.
‘It’s 12’s ball’
In some ways, much of Robinson’s six-year NFL career has been about patience.
He spent his first three seasons with the Jaguars playing with Blake Bortles, a quarterback maligned in the same vein as Trubisky.
Beyond that, Robinson wasn’t happy when he followed up a 2015 Pro Bowl season by catching only 48.3% of his targets for 883 yards in 2016. Then he tore the ACL in his left knee on his first catch in 2017 and spent a year recovering. Last year with the Bears was about his comeback and learning to play within coach Matt Nagy’s offense.
So Robinson’s performance this year — after he had a full offseason to self-scout his work in the Bears offense and a full preseason to run routes and get used to physical contact — has been a long time coming.
Robinson and wide receivers coach Mike Furrey entered the season with the goal he would catch 70% to 75% of his targets, which Robinson said would put him among the “elite” in the league. After catching 10 of his 16 targets against the Saints, his percentage dipped to 69.5%. That’s still more than 10% better than the best of his career, and he’s doing it while defenses know he is Trubisky’s safety net.
Robinson’s goal has resulted in some beautiful catches, the best a 32-yarder from Daniel in London. Robinson dived down the right sideline, absorbed a huge hit from Raiders safety Erik Harris and managed to get his feet down before flying out of bounds.
“It was crazy,” Furrey said. “It was probably one of the best catches I’ve seen in regard to the throw being where it was at, the sideline, the hit he took and then keeping his two feet in bounds. I was a fan of it when it happened because it was a remarkable catch. But that’s where he’s at right now.”
But Robinson also laments plays he should have made. That includes two against the Saints — one down the sideline in which he got only one foot in bounds and another over the middle that would have converted on third-and-14 before the ball dropped out of his outstretched hands.
“It’s just figuring out what I could have done earlier in the play, maybe later in the play, how I could have made that unsuccessful play,” Robinson said. “My expectations are very high. Any play that’s thrown my way or whenever my number is called, I want to make the play.”
Robinson advises Trubisky to follow that solutions-based approach now, in the rockiest time of the quarterback’s career. Robinson said focusing on the fixes, having patience and warding off negativity are what helped him during his rough patches.
Trubisky appreciates how Robinson has handled his work this season, calling him “an absolute professional.”
“He’s got that ‘dog’ mentality that he can’t be covered,” Trubisky said. “No matter who’s out there, he’s always doing the right job, helping guys get lined up. He knows the offense inside and out, is really good with his releases, and when the ball’s in the air, it’s 12’s ball.
“A lot of guys feed off him, his leadership and how he works. They just watch him and his body language, how he carries himself.”
Nagy has been on the lookout for leaders this week as his team looks to break a two-game losing streak, and he said Robinson, while introverted, is one of those guys.
Helfrich would love to see Robinson’s fire translate to his leadership, but “that’s not necessarily in his nature,” Helfrich said. Robinson’s guidance in meetings is more personal, rooted in his studious approach.
“It’s him and the guy next to him, giving him pointers and coaching him up and feedback and asking questions,” Helfrich said. “Unbelievable worker, unbelievable just as a pro in that regard, of always asking for more. ‘Hey, did I step this way? Was that a good angle?’ All the stuff that makes a difference.
“And then on top of it, there’s a dude in there that wants to beat you.”
Of course, Robinson feels some frustration this season because the Bears haven’t figured out how to make their offense functional. But it’s not an emotion from which he shies. It would be worse if there were no frustration, he said.
So he keeps examining his play to see how he can better the team, and he keeps channeling his passion into his play.
Furrey knows well the look Robinson gave the crowd in London after his touchdown. It’s sometimes the lone outward reminder of what is driving Robinson as the rest of the offense stumbles.
“You’re not going to see him throw a helmet down on the ground and stuff like that,” Furrey said. “You just don’t see the antics that go with it. We can look at each other now, and I know. He’s competitive as all get-out, which is why he’s successful. That’s what you want in your room.”
And that’s what the Bears need on the field as they try to turn around their season.