After starting the season red hot and living up to expectations over the first five weeks of the year, Bijan Robinson hit a bump in the road in the second quarter of 2023 That bump in the road was a revocation of his role in the receiving game, which caused his production to dip dramatically into borderline unstartable territory from Weeks 6-9. We talked on the podcast about Bijan Robinson needing to get that receiving work back to push him back into that RB1 territory we knew he belonged in – and since Week 10, he’s done just that.
Through four games from Weeks 6-9, Bijan Robinson was running a route on just 58% of snaps with a target share of just 9% and a targets per route run of 14%. Those numbers were down even from what Robinson had seen earlier in the year, when he was running a route on 74% of snaps and garnering 21% target shares and targets per route run. It’s no surprise that the cutoff in the receiving game that started in Week 5 hurt his production – after averaging 17.6 PPR points per game as the overall RB10 in that span, his numbers dwindled to just 7.9 points per game as the overall RB38 from Weeks 6-9 – a number that was lower than teammate Tyler Allgeier, who averaged 9.4 fantasy points per game in that span.
In Week 10, though, the script flipped for Bijan - and he took control in the receiving game once again. The utilization and production from Weeks 10-14 is nearly identical to what Bijan was getting through the first four weeks of the season; in that five week span, Robinson has run a route on 73% of snaps, earned a 21% target share and posted a 22% targets per route run figure. The fantasy points per game has been even better over the past five weeks than it was in the first four games of the year; Robinson is the RB5 in fantasy points per game over the past five weeks with 18.9.
Chalk it up to the mysterious ways of Arthur Smith if you will, but after watching Bijan struggle through the second quarter of the season, it’s clear that the role he’s had these past few weeks is the role we want him in moving forward. He’s scored four touchdowns over the past three games after scoring just three touchdowns through his first nine games of the year.