Allen Robinson didn’t go out the way he wanted to with the Chicago Bears. That much is obvious. After three productive seasons from 2018 to 2020 including back-to-back years over 1,000 yards, he crashed down hard this season. For the first time in his career, Robinson failed to eclipse 500 yards when playing a full season. Some of this was due to a hamstring injury midway through the year, but it was evident before that that something was off.
The 27-year old just couldn’t get going. He didn’t seem to have any chemistry with quarterback Justin Fields and suffered from unusual mental lapses. Now he is set to enter free agency in March. His stock way lower than he hoped for. When given a chance to speak publicly on the KJM show for ESPN, he opened up on what happened this season. From his perspective, it is pretty obvious what the problem was.
Here’s a hint. It wasn’t him.
Questionable game plans. Not being involved. Not being used the same way as before. There aren’t any attempts at subtlety with this. Allen Robinson made it clear that he believes Matt Nagy and his coaching staff were primarily responsible for why his production crashed so hard in 2021. They didn’t try to get him the football as much. He was targeted 66 times in 12 games. This compared to 151 times in 16 games last season.
This is a drop from 9.43 targets per game to 5.5. What he says is true. The Bears didn’t look to run the offense through him as they had in the past. Nobody can say for sure why Nagy would make changes to do such a thing. Maybe he was hoping to get others like Darnell Mooney and Cole Kmet more involved. More likely it was a combination of things. One thing is clear. Robinson’s frustrations with the coaching staff are evident here.
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Just another reason he’ll be happy to find a new home this spring.
