If you were watching your TV on Sunday saying, “Where the hell is Bijan Robinson?” You weren’t alone. Many of us were in the same boat, swearing about our first-round pick dropping a solid 0.3 fantasy points and barely squeaking over the Underdog Fantasy 0.5 rushing yard promo prop.
This is a new feature article where we’ll analyze the biggest dud of the week and determine what we should reasonably expect going forward. If you guys like this one, there will be more coming! For now, though, let’s get into what happened in fantasy football Week 7.
WHAT HAPPENED TO BIJAN ROBINSON THIS WEEK?
As of now, the details are still a little murky about what happened with Robinson this week. Some reports indicated that he was feeling ill. Bijan himself said that he was dealing with a severe headache. Assuming that the player knows the situation best, it seems likely he did indeed have a headache.
Now, did Bijan have just a regular headache or a migraine? If it was a regular headache, it’s fair to question that Bijan might be soft. If it was a migraine, that’s a fair reason for him not playing. However, it does bring up concerns about his availability in the future, as we went down the migraine road with Percy Harvin, and it wasn’t good. That being said, this was the first such incident, so I don’t want to read too much into it for now.
Obviously, the more significant concern here is that there was no indication anywhere before the game that this was an issue. Arthur Smith is a noted fantasy hater and an all-around asshat with that pedo-stache. It is becoming almost lol-worthy that Smith seems to go out of his way to fantasy owners — especially those with Robinson, Kyle Pitts, and Drake London.
A simple heads-up pre-game that Bijan was dealing with an issue that might be limited would have been nice. Either way, we can’t change what happened. Just know that we are all equally annoyed.
SHOULD FANTASY MANAGERS BE CONCERNED MOVING FORWARD?
I think, for now, we can consider the headache issue an isolated incident. However, it still establishes a baseline of possible outcomes. It is always possible that Robinson(or any Falcons player) could be dealing with something, and the head coach can’t be trusted to be forthcoming about it — which could be an issue with the league.
That’s probably not news.
As noted earlier, Arthur Smith kind of sucks. Unfortunately, though, that isn’t going to change soon. The Falcons keep winning, so he keeps getting validation.
Smith noted earlier in the week that he wanted to be careful about Robinson’s workload. Despite the convenient timing here, I think it was just a coincidence. However, this is still a reason to be cautious about expecting too much going forward. Most people invested a first-rounder in Bijan. This is not the encouraging news you want at that point.
Piggybacking on the limiting of workload, this has already been evident this season. The season’s second week was Bijan’s high watermark for carries with 19. Otherwise, he hasn’t gone above 14 carries in any other week. He also has not scored a touchdown on the ground yet. He does have two receiving touchdowns, but still, this is not the situation we imagined for Robinson.
On the other hand, entering Week 7, Tyler Allgeier had 15 red zone opportunities (carries + targets) to Robinson’s 11. Allgeier also has two red zone rushing touchdowns to Robinson’s zero — while Ridder has two in his last three games.
Seriously, what are we doing here?
REASONS TO BE OPTIMISTIC
First, in talking about next week’s game — Bijan said he’ll be ready. So, again, I do think the headache thing should be a one-off. Beyond this week’s issue, we should have no reason to be concerned about his health.
“I don’t care what I’m going through, I’m going to push through,” Robinson said after the game. “But at the same time, I know it’s a long season. I know that Coach Smith has the best interest at heart for me. Knowing when he has a plan and we have a plan, I’m going to go with it and not bother with it. I’ll be good next week.”
Regarding the prior production we referenced earlier, Bijan was on pace for roughly 1,680 all-purpose yards before this week’s game. While his carries have been limited, he has been very good with the ball in his hands. He also averages a little over four receptions per game (discounting this past week), so he is among the elite pass-catching backs in the league. Basically, this dude is a stud when he touches the ball.
To this point, Arthur Smith has been able to give Allgeier more carries than Bijan, but the Falcons have also been winning. The negative is that their schedule doesn’t exactly get more difficult anytime soon, but maybe we get some closer games, and they need Bijan to win them to stay in the playoff hunt. The reality is that this is a top-end player who his coach is simply misusing. Eventually, luck runs out, and we can hope the Falcons start losing and recognize that Allgeier isn’t the guy.
VERDICT
The end verdict is that Bijan is a beast, and we should all hate Arthur Smith. I have limited concern about the headache this past game (other than it likely cost most people the week). There is no real reason to believe it will be a regular issue. However, the head coach isn’t going away and he criminally underutilizes his best assets.
If Bijan follows a traditional rookie trajectory, we can hope he’ll be ramped up by playoff season. Although, this is far from a guarantee. I always like to bet on talent and Bijan is every bit as talented as we all thought he was. The hard part is the TD production and the carry split — especially in the red zone. Those don’t seem to be going away soon.
Simply, if you have Bijan, you should hold him. You have a stud RB who just needs one thing to break his way (Allgeier injury, ramped up workload) to become a rest-of-season top-three fantasy RB. If you do not have him, you should consider a buy-low opportunity this week and acquire him if his owner is sick of Arthur Smith’s BS.
As long as you recognize you’re getting a great player but a player whose coach limits, then you’ll be fine. Think of him as a solid second-round RB rather than the first-rounder he was taken as, and you won’t be disappointed.
