Saban’s concern and chatter on Dolphins’ first-round pick
Notes and feedback on the Dolphins’ firstround pick Chop Robinson, the edge player from Penn State:
Former Alabama coach
Nick Saban, debuting as an ABC/ESPN analyst, praised Robinson but expressed one significant concern.
“Chop has great one-step quickness, he’s got great speed off the edge, and he plays with a great motor,” Saban said. “But the one thing I would like to see him do so he’s not a one-horse pony kind of guy as a pass rusher, always rushing on the edge, is turn speed to power. If he learns how to do that, this guy is going to be dangerous.
“You saw Chop Robinson run around the tackle, around the edge. You can push him by the quarterback, you can put a tackle there, a tight end or an Hback or somebody to slow him down. But when you start to go around the edge, then you longarm the guy right in the chest and push him back to the quarterback. That’s what I mean [when I say] turn speed to power. Then you become a threeway rusher and you can work the weak shoulder [of the player blocking you].
“When a guy soft-sets you, you work his inside shoulder, you run right through him. But he doesn’t have any power.”
So who among this year’s crop of college edge rushers has both the speed and the power? Saban said two: Alabama’s Dallas Turner (his former player) and UCLA’s Laitau Latu. Both were off the board when Miami picked 21st.
Former Atlanta coach Mike Smith also expressed a concern similar to Saban’s in a piece for “Betway.”
“He’s not real strong and that’s evident when you watch the tape because he’s one of those that get up the field and attacks guys, but when he attacks, he’ll get pushed out of the hole in the running game,” Smith said. “He doesn’t have the girth and the strength to sit down at the line of scrimmage and make plays.
“So, he’ll run up the field and run himself out of plays in the run game. He has to improve that, but I can see him being a third-down guy who you’re going to want on the field in passing situations.”
ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. also has some doubts.
“You need more sack production when you’re that talented. He didn’t have it.”
Robinson had 11.5 sacks in three college seasons but had 54 pressures over the past two seasons at Penn State.
Kiper was troubled that two of his four sacks last season came against FCS school Massachusetts.
“He’s got that great initial quickness, that great first step,” Kiper said. “Then he needs to get that counter move and that’s the issue. Expand that pass-rush arsenal. Go to the secondary move faster when the initial pathway is thwarted. That’s what has to be coached into him.
“He doesn’t have the longest arms in the world, but they’re long enough. The effort is there for the most part, as long as he can seal the edge. Great athletic ability. Sometimes he’s a little late reacting, doesn’t always locate the ball. The talent is there. Will the coaching make him a guy who can get to that 8to 10-sack-a-year mark?”
ESPN’s Louis Riddick was a bit more bullish, comparing him physically to seven-time
Pro Bowler Dwight Freeney, who had 125.5 career sacks: “He’s a ball of muscle. He’s going to be a problem.”
Fox’s Joel Klatt made a
point that should give Dolphins fans hope:
“He’s one of those guys ... you have to actively game plan against. You go back to the Michigan game, Chop Robinson beat their [offensive] tackle so badly on the first two third downs of the game, Michigan abandoned the passing game. Why did Michigan run the ball 32 straight times against Penn State? Because of that man. He totally affected the game and they had to totally abandon throwing the ball with a guy who was a first-round quarterback [J.J. McCarthy].”
What’s discouraging is Robinson’s stats are fairly modest: 60 tackles, 11.5 sacks and three forced fumbles in 35 games, covering three seasons. He had 15 total tackles in 10 games last season.
But consider this:
He had 61 quarterback hurries in 497 career pass-rushing snaps. That’s one hurry for every 8.1 pass-rushing attempts.
Conversely, Alabama’s Turner had 25 sacks in three seasons but had 67 hurries in 806 pass
rushing snaps. That’s one hurry per every 12.0 pass rushing attempts.
So Robinson pressured the quarterback more often, per pass-rush snap, than the player (Turner) who was widely considered the best edge player in the draft.
And his 18 percent pressure rate last season ranked sixth in college football.
That might explain why the modest sack numbers don’t bother Miami, which values “disrupting” the QB as much as sacking him.
“His disruption numbers are very high,” Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said. “Sacks, the guy that would come to mind is Danielle Hunter had four career sacks coming out of college and has been really good in this league [as an elite pass rusher with 87.5 career sacks]. A lot of the traits and things you see on film translate. With our coaching staff and work ethic, we feel he can take [his game] to another level.”
“He plays hard. He plays his [butt] off, and that’s what we like. And then, obviously, the athletic traits and what he has. You see a first-step quickness, the explosion, his ability to bend.”
Asked about his modest sack production, Robinson said: “For me, it was being inconsistent with my hands. I have been working on it repeatedly.”
Former UM coach and new Duke coach Manny Diaz, who coached Robinson as Penn State’s defensive coordinator last season, said on the social media platform X that Robinson is a “great pick. Pairing Chop with Jaelan Phillips together is how you terrorize QBs. Great player and better man.”
Here’s what his defensive line coach at Penn State said about him:
“He understands the game of football so well,” Deion Barnes said. “And always has had the determination to do whatever it takes to be the best he can be. He is a tireless worker who has spent a lot of extra time on his game in the field, in the weight room and in the film room. He has great speed, power and awareness, which are all important traits for a pass rusher and run stopper in the NFL.”
PFF rated him 68th of 1,031 edge players against the run last season. He was in coverage on only four passes last season and two were caught for 20 yards. Pro Football Focus called him an “athletic freak.” His 4.49 time in the 40-yard dash was first among edge rushers at the NFL Combine.
Grier said six teams called the Dolphins asking them to trade down from 21, but that the offers weren’t enticing enough to sacrifice picking Robinson. Grier said there were a couple of enticing offers to trade down from 55, but he ultimately decided to snag Houston left tackle at that pick.