Bijan Robinson is still as strong as ever as a fantasy football asset

Coming into the NFL draft last year, fantasy football managers were eager to see where Texas running back Bijan Robinson would land. The answer ended up being with the Atlanta Falcons with the No. 8 overall pick.

Robinson ended up being the top No. 1 overall pick for a dynasty league in perhaps a decade and he likely even went in the first round of redraft leagues. The excitement was as high as it's been for a running back in a long time, at least since Saquon Barkley turned pro in 2018.

Robinson didn't have a bad rookie season. It just didn't live up to the incredibly lofty expectations. He rushed for 976 yards on 214 carries but scored only four touchdowns. He caught 58 passes for another 487 yards and four more touchdowns.

Fantasy players would have liked to see him find the end zone a bit more often, but those are solid numbers for a rookie. It's not hard to see that those numbers would have been better if not for a few factors.

First and most importantly, he was in what amounts to pretty much a 50-50 timeshare with Tyler Allgeier. While Robinson was given 214 carries, Allgeier had 186. When you consider that Robinson was on the field for 68.2 of the Falcons' offensive snaps compared to just 31.8 percent for Allgeier, that is telling.

Allgeier was nowhere near the weapon that Robinson was in the passing game but truthfully, he shouldn't have been given so many carries that likely should have gone to Robinson. It seemed that every time the Falcons were down inside the 5-yard line of the opposition, Robinson wasn't even on the field and those carries went to Allgeier.

That helped Allgeier vulture four touchdowns on the ground. There was also that weird game where the Falcons played Tampa Bay in late October and Robinson, not listed on any injury report, had zero touches at halftime and finished the game with one carry for three yards. Fantasy players were not too thrilled about that one.

Was former head coach Arthur Smith to blame for that? That's how many Falcons fans and fantasy football players saw it. But now Smith is gone, replaced by Raheem Morris. But it's the team's new offensive coordinator that should excite those who roster Robinson.

He was the passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Los Angeles Rams last season, part of an offense that saw Kyren Williams become a league winner in fantasy.

That is encouraging as Robinson will know how important getting the ball in the hands of Bijan is going to be. The Rams rode Williams to the postseason this past year and while it's true that the depth at running back on that team was thin, Williams carried the ball 228 times in 2023. The No. 2 guy on that list was Royce Freeman with 77 attempts.

This is not to say that the Falcons should phase Allgeier out, but he should not be handling the ball 200+ times this coming season. Instead, the team should look to feed the man they drafted in the first round.

So if you have Bijan on your dynasty roster and are feeling a bit down over the way he played as a rookie, snap out of it. If you are getting lowball offers from other managers in your league looking to hope you'll make a foolish move and trade him for nothing, reject those now and say he's not for sale.

Bijan Robinson will be a candidate to have a massive 2024 season and be a top 5 RB in fantasy.

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