Brian Robinson — Week 1: Nine Carries and a Forty-Yard Kickoff Return
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Robinson carried nine times for thirty-one yards Sunday, no targets, the longest a fourteen-yarder on the first snap after T.J. Watt's pick-six, and opened the second half by returning the kickoff forty yards from the Atlanta three to the forty-three. Bijan Robinson carried twenty-one times on a day the Falcons ran thirty-one, in a 20–13 loss to the Steelers.
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Brian Robinson's longest touch Sunday did not count as a carry. Second half kickoff, Chris Boswell's kick to the Atlanta three, and Robinson brought it back 40 yards to the 43, worth +3.5 points of win probability — the share of games a team in that situation goes on to win. Atlanta got to the Pittsburgh 27 from there, and Nick Folk missed from 45. He had also taken the first-quarter kickoff after Boswell's field goal from a yard deep in the end zone out to the 23.
The carries: nine, 31 yards, no touchdowns, no targets. Three of the nine were successful, meaning they gained what the down and distance asked, and the nine came out at −1.1 expected points added, which is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. The best of them was the first snap after T.J. Watt's interception return: first and 10 at the Atlanta 34, 13 57 left in the fourth, Falcons down 10 to 20, left end for 14. The other first down was a seven-yarder around left tackle on second and three from the 42 in the first quarter. The worst was first and 10 at the Pittsburgh 28 with three 55 left in the third, right guard for −1, Watt on the tackle, on the drive that ended in Folk's 51-yard field goal. Nothing else went longer than five.
The split is the football here. Atlanta ran 31 times: 21 for Bijan Robinson, nine for Brian, one for Drake London. Four of Brian's carries came before halftime and five after, when the Falcons ran 20 times, so his share fell by about a third even as the volume nearly doubled. He was not thrown to on any of Cooper Rush's 26 pass plays, and the Falcons never ran a play inside the Pittsburgh 20, so there was no goal-line work for anyone to split.
Back in June the preview's read on Robinson was a roster presence more than a role — 60-first among running backs across 17 games, and the opportunity simply was not there. Sunday gave him nine carries, two kickoff returns and no targets behind a back who touched the ball 29 times, which is about the role the preview described. One game cannot say the role grows, and nothing in this one suggested it would. Atlanta is home to the Panthers on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
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