Getty Image / Justin Casterline
Back in 2020, James Robinson was everything that an undrafted rookie could hope to be. After the Jacksonville Jaguars cut Leonard Fournette, Robinson beat Robinson beat out Devine Ozigbo for the team’s starting running back job and quickly made it clear that it was a mistake for him to not have been drafted.
In that rookie season, he racked 1070 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to keep the Jaguars from drafting somebody to replace him. The Jaguars spent a 1st round pick on Travis Etienne before the start of Robinson’s second season.
When Etienne was injured before the start of his rookie season, Robinson once again found himself operating as an integral part of the Jaguars offense and contributed another 767 yards and 8 touchdowns.
Still, it wasn’t enough for the Jaguars to want to keep Robinson around for long after Etienne got healthy. After maintaining a healthy role in the offense for the first 6 weeks, Robinson didn’t receive a carry in Week 7. The Jaguars blamed knee soreness.
It shortly became clear that the actual reason was because they were ready to turn the job over to Etienne as they traded Robinson to the New York Jets.
Today, Robinson revealed that wasn’t happy about the Jaguars’ excuse for him not playing last week.
James Robinson isn’t happy that the Jacksonville Jaguars blamed his lack of Week 7 carries on knee soreness
James Robinson didn’t sound too happy that Doug Pederson said “knee soreness” was the reason he didn’t play last week.
Said he thinks they were using that as an “excuse” to go away from using him and that knee soreness is nothing out of the ordinary. #Jets
— Zack Rosenblatt (@ZackBlatt) October 26, 2022
Robinson isn’t on the injury report for the Jets heading into Week 8. While it’s an unfortunate way for his time with the Jaguars to end, he gets a great opportunity to be a key piece of an offense again thanks to the trade.
The Jets have leaned on their running game throughout the season and Robinson only has to compete with Michael Carter to be the team’s lead back. Maybe his performance with the Jets will convince a team without a highly drafted young running back to take bring him next year.