Bijan Robinson has the NFL rushing lead, but he’s not interested in wearing that label just yet.
Ahead of Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals in Madrid, a reporter called the Atlanta Falcons star the league’s best running back. Robinson didn’t bite.
“I’ll be honest, like, I don’t feel like I’m playing like that right now,” Robinson said. “I have to be better.”
The numbers say Robinson is having a big season anyway. Through eight games, he leads the NFL with 780 rushing yards. He’s piled up those yards on 150 carries, scored four rushing touchdowns and averaged 5.2 yards per attempt.
Still, the recent stretch has been quieter by his standards. Robinson has gone four straight games without a touchdown and hasn’t topped 100 rushing yards in any of them. In Sunday’s 16-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he finished with 76 yards on 19 carries.
That came at a bad time for Atlanta, which has dropped three of its past four games. The Falcons’ 29-20 win over the San Francisco 49ers looked like a chance to build something, but the shutout in Tampa Bay knocked them back.
Robinson’s early-season explosions showed exactly what he can do when Atlanta’s offense is rolling. He ran for 194 yards against the Green Bay Packers, then followed with 145 against the New Orleans Saints. The Falcons won both games, and Robinson scored two rushing touchdowns in each.
His impact has drawn praise from one of the league’s biggest names at the position, too. Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry called Robinson “the best in the game right now” while speaking to reporters last month. Henry pointed to Robinson’s ability to make defenders miss and keep churning out yards even when a play breaks down.
Atlanta will need that version of Robinson on Sunday at Bernabéu Stadium. The Bengals arrive on a three-game winning streak and have scored at least 30 points in each of those wins.
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Michael Penix Jr. Gets One Immediate Chance To Silence Falcons Doubts
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Now comes a different kind of test, and potentially a cleaner chance for Penix to reset the conversation around his play. Cincinnati does not present the same blitz-heavy challenge Tampa Bay did, and the matchup should give Atlanta a better read on how Penix handles a defense built more around man coverage than constant pressure, which is the sort of look that can tell a lot about where his comfort level really is. [Read more 🡒]