Darrell Taylor not ready. L.J. Collier out again. But Seahawks rookie Alton Robinson wows
Alton Robinson is bigger—and better—than he was advertised to the Seahawks.
That and the team’s desperate need for young, emerging pass rushers have the rookie moving up in prominence as Seattle’s latest intriguing fifth-round draft choice.
You know, the round in which they drafted Michael Dickson, Luke Willson, Quinton Jefferson and, most famously, Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor.
It’s not time after 10 practices of his NFL career to put Robinson in that category of Seahawks’ fifth-round lore just yet. But the power he is packing with his increased size in his first training camp plus his new team’s absolutely needing young edge pass rushers to succeed this season make Robinson one of this month’s Seattle surprises.
“He’s surprised all of us,” coach Pete Carroll said of the 6-foot3 defensive end from Syracuse, “in that he’s bigger than we thought.
“He came in about 15 pounds heavier than he played (in college).”
The team listed Robinson at 259 pounds. That was before he trained intensely in the Seattle suburbs during the coronavirus pandemic, to add strength from the draft in April until reporting to camp late last month.
He came into training camp at 277. That added weight has meant added power as a second-team defensive end going against the Seahawks’ offensive tackles in pass-rush drills and scrimmages. It’s meant steady wins for Robinson in those one-on-ones.
“It’s helped him,” Carroll said. “He’s a powerful rusher. And he already has good finesse and good moves and understands how to play on the edge, and all. But he can see him break the edge down some, because he’s stronger than some of the faster, sleeker guys that weigh in the 250s.”
Guys like Jadeveon Clowney.
The third week of training-camp practices began around the NFL on Monday, and the three-time Pro Bowl edge rusher remains the most accomplished free agent still unsigned. He knows what the Seahawks offered him back in March to return for 2020. The team continues to wait for the market to move back to it, which so far it has done, and perhaps now on a one-year contract instead of the multiyear one for which the Seahawks had planned out months ago.
They drafted Robinson and Darrell Taylor, the edge-rushing defensive end from Tennessee in the second round, as hedges in case Clowney doesn’t re-sign, and for needed depth if he does. Seattle was next to last in the NFL last season in sacks, 28 in 16 games.
But Taylor has not practiced for the Seahawks. He’s on the physically-unable-to-perform list indefinitely. Surgeons inserted a Titanium rod to fix a stress fracture in his lower leg in late January. Carroll said last week Taylor is going to be a while, and that “the race is on” for the team’s top rookie pass rusher to be ready for the opener Sept. 13 at Atlanta.
That adds urgency to Robinson’s readiness for real games through this training camp.
So does this: L.J. Collier, the Seahawks’ top rookie pass rusher from last year, missed Monday’s first practice since Saturday’s mock-game scrimmage. Carroll spoke before the practice and did not mention Collier when asked if the team had any new injuries coming out of the mock game.
Seattle’s first-round draft pick in 2019 wore a mask while his teammates wore helmets through the first part of Monday’s practice.
That’s Collier, Clowney and end-tackle Quinton Jefferson (who signed with Buffalo in free agency this offseason) missing from last year’s pass rush. And the team’s top rookie sack man is missing for this year so far.
That leaves the Seahawks relying—a ton—on veterans Bruce Irvin and Benson Mayowa to be wondrous free-agent signings from this spring.
Irvin turns 33 in November. Mayowa, 29 had seven sacks in seven games last season before his Raiders coaches just gave up on him.
They are the starting ends in passing situations so far in camp. In base defense, it’s been returning 2019 sack leader (with four) Rasheem Green and Mayowa at ends, with Irvin as the strongside linebacker in the 4-3 alignment. Robinson is in the primary backup end spot Taylor would likely be in, at least, if he was healthy.
Robinson isn’t just bigger, he still has speed. Carroll said the Seahawks have him timed at 4.6 seconds in 40-yard dashes.
How does an edge rusher with 4.6 speed who is 6-3 and 270-plus pounds last until the fifth round in a pass-or-sack-the-passer league that can’t get enough edge rushers harassing quarterbacks?
Robinson was going to attend and play for his home-state Texas A&M. But he got charged with robbery after an alleged altercation with a girlfriend. A&M dropped him. The charged eventually was dismissed.
He instead went to junior college, Northeast Oklahoma A&M. Then Syracuse gave him a second chance at the top level of college football. That’s where he became a fast, NFL-ready edge rusher. He had 19 1/2 sacks in his final two of three seasons at Syracuse. He was an every-down end in a 4-3 scheme for the Orange, and has been described as just too good for most of Syracuse’s lesser-than-Southeastern-Conference competition he would have had at A&M if not for his arrest as a teen.
“Basically, I was immature at the time,” Robinson said. “It was very embarrassing...
“I definitely learned from it.”
Life lessons and second chances, guys with much to prove: Carroll loves to stockpile those on the Seahawks.
If Robinson keeps showing the power at his added weight while keeping his speed, he will get a chance to become early this season what Collier was supposed to be all last year. That was before Collier’s training-camp injury then him being a healthy scratch for five games.
“You put all the package together, he’s done well,” Carroll said of Robinson. “He’s done real well.
“We haven’t seen him play in a game yet, so we don’t know. But he’s made a really good impression. And so, probably, we are more excited than we thought we could at this time, this early in camp.
“So that’s a real positive.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 4:27 PM.
