Nobody's happy after a beatdown, and an unfortunate consequence of that unhappiness is that bright moments get lost. And so it happened that Denard Robinson did something awesome, but only held our attention for as long as the Jacksonville Jaguars' short-lived 7-3 lead.
Denard Robinson is a cult classic in the making
Denard Robinson is a statistical oddity for now, but don’t be surprised if he soon becomes one of your favorite players.
Richard Dole-USA TODAY Sports
Robinson's 32-yard burst in London was everything he had come to be known for before landing in Jacksonville out of Michigan. He's remarkably good at geometry. Watch it, and mark every Dallas Cowboys' player whose fingertips only just glance Robinson's jersey, if they make contact at all. (Also mark the blocking -- a young Jaguars offense may be learning.) Robinson bisects two defensive linemen, runs tangent to a good block on a scraping linebacker, then angles to the corner of the end zone and scores.
Since taking over as the Jaguars' starting running back in Week 7, only DeMarco Murray and Mark Ingram have rushed for more yards than Robinson. Only Arian Foster is averaging more than Robinson's 5.4 yards per carry among any running back with at least 24 carries over that span (Robinson has 72). And only Marshawn Lynch and Jamaal Charles can claim more rushing touchdowns. It's no stretch to say Robinson has been the best runner in the NFL over the last four weeks.
He has been the best thing going for the Jaguars. In 59 attempts, Toby Gerhart managed a long run of 13 yards. Robinson already has seven carries as long or longer than Gerhart's best, and he did so without much support from Blake Bortles' rookie noodling with baby-faced receivers.
Denard was quiet after his big run against the Cowboys. His other 14 carries went for 28 yards. Nine of those carries went for two yards or fewer. He was stopped for a loss three times. He is still new to playing running back full time, and he is still playing for a bad team. He isn’t approaching must-watch territory. Robinson has a modest 43 percent success rate on any play, according to Football Outsiders. His big games are terse, difficult to digest performances that demand patience to appreciate. And they don’t amount to much as long as his team keeps losing.
So Robinson is an acquired taste, not like Murray whose season has been a romp from the beginning. It’s fitting then that he plays in Jacksonville, where great running backs run wild but never with much mainstream success. In fact, Jacksonville was home to perhaps the best back to never receive duly critical acclaim.
Remember Fred Taylor?
Taylor had seven seasons with more than 1,000 yards rushing from his 1998 rookie year to his last truly productive season in 2007. Over that span he was the NFL's second-most productive rusher behind Edgerrin James with 10,715 yards rushing. He was more productive than LaDainian Tomlinson, Corey Dillon and Curtis Martin, all of who had more carries. Taylor's 4.69 yards per carry was better than any player within 6,000 yards of him in that span except for Tiki Barber (9,938 yards).
Taylor is 15th on the all-time rushing list, and every player ahead of him -- with the still-early exceptions of Tomlinson, Jerome Bettis and Edgerrin James -- has gone into the NFL Hall of Fame. There is a very good chance that Taylor will get shut out by Canton, however, and the biggest reason may be his lone Pro Bowl appearance.
Taylor had many great seasons. He racked up 1,644 total yards as a rookie, and his 17 touchdowns tied for second in the league. In 2003, he had the most productive season of his career, finishing sixth in the NFL with 1,572 rushing yards and 1,942 total yards. In 2000, Taylor missed three games and still posted more total yards than all but 13 offensive skill players, and averaged a league-leading 107.6 yards rushing per game.
But it wasn’t until 2007, when he was 31, that Taylor was named to the AFC Pro Bowl squad off a relatively meager season. Taylor had 1,260 total yards in 15 games. It was just his seventh best season in terms of productivity across a 13-year career. You could call the honor a lifetime achievement award, except that Taylor only got to go as an injury replacement.
Whereas Robinson is a mathematician still figuring out how best to move in a straight line, Taylor was more a scientist, arranging on-field elements as he saw fit with lateral quickness. That he did so within a 230-pound frame is freaky. Robinson isn't that, nor is he Maurice Jones-Drew, who ran to three straight Pro Bowls after Taylor left and has also established himself as one of the greats for a franchise that, recently, has been too bad in a too-obscure market to garner much attention outside of its homebase.
Robinson’s short run of success mirrors the careers of Taylor and Jones-Drew, however. It’s a stretch that’s much more remarkable and deserving of praise than many are willing to spare for a player on a 1-9 team. Like a cult classic, word of Robinson’s exploits are spread by word of mouth. Thankfully, fantasy football has become a great vehicle for discovering overlooked players.
And perhaps it’s not so bad if Robinson remains somewhat overlooked, or if this is all there is to what has been a surprising NFL outburst. Players we discover or appreciate on our own often become the ones we hold most dear. But it means that a player isn’t yet getting the respect he deserves, except perhaps some time down the line when perspective has washed out market bias and win-loss records.
Robinson says he can become one of the best running backs in the NFL. In the last four weeks, that doesn’t seem like a crazy proposition for the converted quarterback. But whether he will ever be widely regarded as such may be out of his control. Just ask Fred Taylor.
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