While the Pittsburgh Steelers brought in wide receiver Allen Robinson II for what he can do on the football field, no doubt they were also hoping that he could serve as a veteran presence for what is in many places—including the wide receiver room—a young offense.
A 2014 second-round draft pick, Robinson will turn 30 in late August, yet he’s seen a lot of football during that time and has gotten to experience it from a number of different points of view. He is happy to now share that in his new role in Pittsburgh.
“I think it’s just helping to expand guys’ knowledge and just talking through different experiences that I’ve had and things like that”, he said during OTAs recently, via Amanda Godsey of the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat. “It’s fun. When you’ve been able to go 10 years in the league, you’ve been able to see a lot of football and see a lot of different things across the NFL, being able to learn from a lot of different people, a lot of different coaches and players”.
A former Penn State alum, Robinson’s first stop in the NFL was with the Jacksonville Jaguars, spending his first four years there. That included watching his team beat the Steelers twice in 2017, though he missed nearly all of that season due to injury.
He moved on in free agency the following offseason, signing with the Chicago Bears, where he spent the next four years before arriving in Los Angeles in 2022 with the Rams. This past season didn’t particularly go as planned for a number of reasons that have already been discussed, but now all parties are looking for a fresh start.
Now Robinson comes into a room in which fifth-year Diontae Johnson is the old veteran among the established players. George Pickens and Calvin Austin III are just heading into year two, the latter having missed all of his rookie season. Who else ends up filling out the depth chart is yet to be determined, but options include Gunner Olszewski, Anthony Miller, and Hakeem Butler.
Robinson is willing to be an open book for all of them, to share the insights he has picked up over the years, playing in different schemes with different teammates and different coaches, all of whom had their own way of doing things.
As for the football part of the job, Robinson is likely to be the Steelers’ third receiver this season alongside Johnson and Pickens. He should see most of his time in the slot, which is the role the team had been looking to replace.
Pittsburgh has him under contract through 2024 if they so desire to keep him in their employ beyond this season, but he has a $10 million base salary on the books. If things do work out, they could do what they did with quarterback Mitch Trubisky recently and sign him to an extension that provides some cap relief, a more manageable per-year salary average, and some stability for the player.
