Does Greg Robinson finally have the footwork to anchor the Rams offensive line?

It didn’t bother me much that he wasn’t asked to block edge rushers one-on-one all that often. I figured it was no big deal. As athletic as he looked doing everything else, sure, it might take a little while for him to get up to speed, but eventually with a little more technique it would all work itself out, right?

Yeah ... about that.

Robinson has pretty much been as advertised as a run blocker. He knocks people off the ball consistently and does a really good job on second-level blocks. If I had one criticism of his run blocking, it would be that at times he gets a little too aggressive when he is trying to finish a defender, which allows that guy to use Robinson’s momentum against him and escape off his block a little too easily for my tastes. Overall, I’d say his run blocking was definitely adequate, if not consistently dominant, in the games I watched last season.

His pass blocking, on the other hand ... whew.

He has the same aggressiveness issues with his pass protection as he does with his run blocking, but when a pass rusher escapes off his block that easily, it’s a lot more noticeable because his quarterback ends up getting knocked the fuck out.

The weird thing is that Robinson consistently showed a decent initial kick step out of his stance. He would get the kind of width and depth you usually want to see at the snap of the football. That is, of course, when he actually moves on the snap of the football, but I digress.

The problem usually came in after those first two kick steps. For whatever reason, Robinson would go from initially moving his feet in tandem well together to just winging it. His feet would be all over the place by the time he was supposed to be punching the edge rusher. That was especially true if it appeared the pass rusher might actually beat him around the edge.

The best offensive tackles I ever went against shuffled their feet in unison the whole time they were pass blocking. That allowed them to keep their balance and maintain a good base so they could have power in their punch and also recover well if a guy changed directions. But once a guy starts crossing his feet up, his ass was usually grass because he no longer had any power and would have a hard time reacting to any change of direction.

Robinson, unfortunately, tended to stop his feet while pass blocking quite a bit. Other times he crosses them over when he thought a guy was going to beat him around the edge. That meant that for as big and strong as he is, he couldn’t really knock guys off their path consistently, and he also had a hard time recovering from counter moves.

What’s crazy is that with Robinson being as technique poor as he has been, you’d think he would be an unmitigated disaster at left tackle, but he hasn’t.

Oh, it gets ugly for him on film at times, but I’ve definitely seen a lot worse. It’s kind of a testament to just how athletic and powerful he is that even with his feet being all out of whack, he still usually manages to get the job done, for the most part. Watching his film, it’s apparent that if he could just get those feet right, Robinson can still be one of the best left tackles in the league.

Well, good news Rams fans, this offseason Robinson has been working with former NFL offensive lineman LeCharles Bentley to get his technique right. I’ve heard many good things about Bentley’s abilities as a coach. More than anything else, what this shows me is that Robinson himself understands that his poor technique has been holding him back so far and that he is doing something to try to fix it.

I’m just telling you, if this kid only learns how to shuffle his feet better so that he is able to maintain his power after his initial kick step, that alone could turn him into the kind of monster I thought he’d be coming out. A Greg Robinson with better technique is a guy who will absolutely manhandle edge rushers. I’m talking about the kind of physical dominance that just jumps off the screen at you.

Sometimes it can be hard to tell when an offensive lineman breaks out, but I have a feeling that won’t be the case with Robinson.