‘There’s nothing he can’t do’: Lockie Bijan Robinson still has aspirations of becoming the best player in the NFL

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Bijan Robinson appreciated the love, really.

Most NFL coaches, talking about a favorite player, might say they’re the best at their position, maybe hedging it as one of the best. But Falcons coach Raheem Morris had no such hesitation in praising his star running back in September. 

“There’s no doubt about it. He’s definitely the best player in football in my head,” Morris said. “I don’t care. He’s unbelievable. I love the kid. I love everything about him. I love watching him with the ball. I love his confidence. I love his demeanor. I love his mindset. I love the leadership. I love everything about him. And it is what it is. I love the kid.”

Robinson heard the clip on social media, then heard about it from teammates. Was he flattered? Motivated?

“I told him, ‘I’ve got a lot of work to do,’ which I do. I’m trying to work to become that,'” the 23-year-old said. “I appreciate him showing the love to me, but I just push it to the side. Those kinds of comments, when people talk about me, it just goes right past my head. You never have to worry about me getting a big head. I stay humble to the teeth, and I just work as hard as I can to try to achieve that.”

Robinson, the eighth overall pick out of Texas in 2023, rushed for just under 1,000 yards as a rookie, then made the Pro Bowl in his second season, and his growth has continued in the first four games of 2025. Not only does he lead the NFL with 146 yards from scrimmage per game — that’s rushing and receiving — but that puts him on pace for 2,482 yards, challenging the league record of 2,509, set by the Titans’ Chris Johnson in 2009.

It’s not hard for Robinson’s coaches to be effusive in their praise of him. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian explained last week why Robinson is such an all-around back, and why the skills he showed off in college — rushing for 1,580 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2022 — have translated so well to NFL success.

“Bijan is a complete player. Not just a running back, but a complete football player,” Sarkisian said. “He’s got the size, he has the speed, he has the feel and the vision. He has the one-cut ability. He can make full-speed cuts and get to top-end speed. He’s got a very high football IQ. He’s got elite hands out of the backfield. 

“So when you put all of that together, and the guy is the consummate teammate. I used to say it all the time about Bijan: He’s a better human being than he is a football player, and he’s a fantastic football player. The person that he is, the teammate that he is, the attention to detail and the intent with which he practices, the leading by example are all things that translate really well to the NFL.”

And toward that end, his Falcons teammates know what he can do with the football, but will first point out the demeanor he brings to every practice and meeting, a levelheadedness you don’t always show at such a young age.

“He’s that same person every day, and that’s what you like about him,” quarterback Michael Penix said. “Whenever you have that consistency, you know what you’re going to get out of him, each and every day. He’s not coming in in different moods all the time. I feel like he’s been the same person since Day 1, since I met him. It’s legit.”

Falcons receiver Casey Washington said it’s normal to watch someone and want to emulate a skill yourself. But he said sometimes with Robinson, you see something and appreciate that he has talents that can’t be replicated.

“When you watch him play, a lot of guys have a lot of technical aspects about their game, but Bijan is so Bijan that when you see him play, you’re like ‘Damn, he’s balling,'” he said. “It’s something special. We know every time he gets the ball, the first man is going to miss. You try to take things from his game and apply it to yours, but some things he does are just special.”

Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson had seen what Robinson could do first-hand, before he even got to the NFL. In 2022, when he was a Rams assistant on a bye week, he went back to his alma mater, Oklahoma State, and was on the sidelines when it faced Texas. The Cowboys won 41-34, but only after Robinson had rushed for 140 yards and a touchdown, also scoring on a 41-yard catch.

“He was the best player on the field,” said Zac Robinson, who also remembers watching Bijan’s NFL debut in the Rams locker room in 2023, seeing him score his first NFL touchdown against the Panthers, side-stepping one defender on a screen pass and then powering between two others for an 11-yard score.

“We were watching that in the locker room and thought ‘This guy’s going to be a problem,'” Zac added. 

The coach came to Atlanta last season, and with Bijan leading the way, the Falcons jumped from 26th in scoring to 13th. Robinson finished third in the league in rushing yards (1,456) and fourth in yards from scrimmage (1,887), and his coordinator went into the offseason trying to find new ways to somehow get him even more involved.

“When we got here, new system, we want B to play running back and learn the offense and the structure of the offense and his details from the running back spot,” Zac Robinson said. “He was able to still catch a bunch of balls, have some production in the pass game, but our big emphasis in the offseason was, ‘OK, now that he’s mastered his role within the offense, from the offset gun or the pistol or underneath the center, how can we expand his game?’ 

“He’s so talented. There’s nothing he really can’t do on the field. His ability to move around at a number of spots, he’s been all over the field. He’s incredibly smart. He’s handling everything really well, and we’ll just keep expanding on all those things.”

The Falcons also wanted more of a big-play threat from Robinson. In his first two years in Atlanta, he had only one play longer than 40 yards, and only one longer than 30 last season. Getting loose in the open field and pulling away was a priority, and on the Falcons’ first series of 2025, he broke out for a 50-yard touchdown catch against the Buccaneers. In Atlanta’s win over Washington, Robinson set up a third-quarter touchdown with a 69-yard catch from Penix.

They’ve added to Robinson’s receiving role, with at least five targets in every game this season, putting him on pace for 98 targets, up considerably from 72 last year. Robinson has learned packages as a receiver, understanding the route tree and how he can react to different coverages while staying on the same page as Penix, appreciating the creativity used to get him open downfield.

“There’s no limit in what he lets me do,” Robinson said. “Yeah, I run the football, that’s what I do, what God blessed me to do, but he lets me play receiver too, run routes, catch the football. He’s upping my arsenal, doing so many things, it’s making me a complete player, and I really appreciate him doing that because it’s only helping us become the best offense we can be.”

Atlanta has a solid second back in Tyler Allgeier, and the Falcons have utilized both in plays, flaring one out as a receiver to get another playmaker in open space. Allgeier rushed for 1,035 yards as a rookie in 2022, the year before Robinson’s arrival, and the Falcons have continued to split their rushing load between the two. Robinson had 62% of the carries between them in his first two seasons, and he has a 60% share this season, saying the balance helps both have fresh legs late in the game when the Falcons need them the most.

“Me and Tyler, how we play off each other has been amazing. That’s my brother,” Robinson said. “He knows when he has to go in and when I have to go in, and that dude, he complements me tremendously. It’s hard to do it without Tyler, hard to do it in this league without another back that’s at a high level. That makes your offense so much more effective.”

Asked if he wants a bigger piece of the pie, to be featured more in the running back split or get more targets in the passing game, Robinson said that isn’t in his nature, that he’s happy to share the workload and the spotlight that comes with it.

“That’s not who I am,” he said. “I’m never the guy to be like ‘Yo, give me the ball. I need the ball.’ I just want to see everybody have touches and succeed.”

Robinson has a natural bond with his teammates. During Atlanta’s bye week last weekend, he and tight end Kyle Pitts both went to the Texas-Florida game in Gainesville, supporting their old colleges in person. They agreed to a friendly wager you see across NFL locker rooms every week, and because Pitts’ Gators knocked off the No. 9 Longhorns, that meant Robinson would be wearing Florida gear in the team facility all day Friday.

Some players can be mild-mannered off the field and flip a switch during games. But Robinson has the same personality all the time, saying that he’s frustrated opponents who want to talk trash during games and try to get him to respond with the same.

“I don’t say a word, so it’s like awkward for them,” he said. “They’re like ‘OK.’ The last game, somebody tried to trash-talk me, and I just looked at him and kept walking. He was like ‘Damn, B. Nothing?’ I was like ‘No! What do you want me to say?’ I just stay silent. I have a job to do, and I’m not going to let that distract me from the game.”

Robinson is long past trying to make a name for himself, but getting fans to pronounce his name correctly is another challenge. It’s bih-ZHON, not BEE-zhon or BEE-john. He has his own official mustard, Bijan Mustardson (“It’ll break your mouth’s ankles!”) and has dabbled in acting, with a cameo in the show “Outer Banks” last year — he’s close friends with one of the actors, and the show’s producer is a big Falcons fan.

On the field, Robinson has expanded his impact as a player, but Morris also wanted more in another area, asking him to step up as a leader as Atlanta sought to end a seven-year playoff drought.

“Last year, my first year with him, I thought he was absolutely outstanding then,” Morris said. “I know he made a real effort on his own to be more vocal, more of a leader for those guys. He’s always led by example, but he’s gotten to be more of a vocal leader.”

Robinson has tried to stay true to his own personality while emerging as a leader. He’s not an angry player, so he’s tried to find ways to show emotion and spark his team without compromising who they know him to be, a little good-captain, bad-captain if you will.

“I started to tell the guys, we have to amp our energy up, so we can be at our best,” he recalled about a vocal moment the week of their game against Minnesota. “I think they responded to me pretty well. Obviously, (guard) Chris [Lindstrom]He’s the guy, and when Chris says ‘let’s focus, let’s pay attention’, we all say ‘ok, let’s go’. I feel like I can play with him and help him a little bit and do it in my most positive way. I’m not just guys cheating on their mothers and yelling at men. This is not who I am. “I try to make it as positive as possible and get them to respond in the best way possible.”

Morris’s high praise of Robinson being the best player in the NFL may work against the Falcons as they try to negotiate an extension for their prized returner. He will be eligible for a new deal after this season, though any extension would likely be executed after his rookie deal and fifth-year option in 2027.

If Robinson continues as he has played this season, he will be in line for the largest continuous contract in NFL history. Only two running backs make more than $15 million annually in Saquon Barkley ($20.6 million annually) and Christian McCaffrey ($19 million annually), and Robinson’s new deal will almost certainly match those deals annually, and far exceed the overall record of $48 million, set by Josh Jacobs with his four-year deal with the Packers.

Can he explain what Morris said? Can a running back do enough to become an MVP? He’s building his resume year after year, and can add an All-Pro honor to the Pro Bowl nod he’s already earned. Robinson is focused on now and his overall contributions, knowing the success he had there, and the wins he can help the Falcons achieve, will lead to whatever awaits him on a new deal.

“The goal for me is to be the best I can be on offense, be a threat at receiver, at running back, wherever I am,” Robinson said. “Hopefully it will confuse the defence, make them miscommunicate. Sometimes I try to be a decoy, to open up the offense.” [receivers]And when I get called upon, when I have the ball in my hand, I try to do everything I can to get those touches for us so we can win the game.”

Greg Ohman He is an NFL correspondent for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering Pirates to Tampa Bay Times and Sports. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregoman.

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