I was flipping back and forth between the Fanatic and WIP on Monday and Tuesday and noticed a LOT of Bijan Robinson talk on the latter. Not that it should come as a surprise, since WIP talks Eagles more than anyone or anything, but it seemed like they were going extra hard on this topic specifically.

Sure enough, checking out the Audacy website, they branded this discussion as a “Bijan or Bust” type of thing, asking the hosts to take sides and then tallying up the results into a list that looked like this:

The correct answer, of course, is no, so as much as it pains me to say it, Howard “The King” Eskin is on the right side of history here.

Why? Well it’s not even really about Bijan Robinson at all. The guy is a monster talent, a steamrolling ball carrier who will make any team that drafts him better. The key point, however, is that he plays the least-important offensive position in the modern-day NFL, a position that championship-winning teams just don’t prioritize, because they don’t have to.

Just use last year as an example. Miles Sanders, a league-average NFL ball carrier still on his first contract, ran for 1,274 yards behind the Eagles’ stacked offensive line. Kansas City got 5.1 YPC in the Super Bowl from a 7th-round rookie out of Rutgers. The league’s top three rushers, Josh Jacobs, Derrick Henry, and Nick Chubb, were not on playoff teams. The NFL remains a passing league and running back is the most plug-and-play position on the offensive side of the ball.


We also have to keep in mind that the Eagles were top-3 or top-5 across the board in most major offensive statistical categories last season. They will return 80% of the offensive line, the MVP candidate quarterback, the WR1, the WR2, and the TE1. Drafting Robinson and adding him to that group improves you how much, hypothetically? Do you improve from top three to top two? Top five to top four?

2022 Eagles ranks, via SportRadar data:

  • 28.1 points per game (3rd)
  • 389.1 yards per game (3rd)
  • 147.6 rush yards per game (5th)
  • 256.7 pass yards per game (9th)
  • 45.9% on 3rd down (4th)
  • 80 big plays (2nd)
  • 30.6 drive touchdown percentage (2nd)
  • 19 giveaways (tied for 5th fewest)

We’re talking about the concept of overkill here, and not the underrated thrash metal band from New Jersey. Do you use the #10 pick to create a small, perhaps even negligible offensive improvement? Or do you stick to your philosophical guns, reinforce the lines, add a pass rusher perhaps, or trade back for more assets? That’s the strategy the Birds typically employ.

The one argument I will concede is that defense just doesn’t matter as much as it used to. If you’re one of those people who looks back at Super Bowl 57 and feels like the Eagles needed to score on every single possession to keep up with the Chiefs, then building an offensive juggernaut is certainly a strategy worth trying. If the way to beat Kansas City is to eschew defense and simply fight fire with fire on the other side the ball, then maybe drafting Robinson and saying “fuck it, we’re going for it” is the way to proceed.

The other thing to consider is something I think Eagles fans gloss over, and that’s the fact that Jalen Hurts is a dual-threat quarterback who was fifth in the entire NFL with 44 red zone rushing attempts last season. His presence makes the necessity of a stud RB1 a little less important, and even slightly redundant, because Hurts is going to be getting his bulky share of the carries. The offense is predicated on that. When we talk about the Eagles going “running back by committee,” Hurts should really be included in that discussion because of the RPO and zone read sets the Birds typically employ. That’s why we’ve done the jokes about the “four-headed monster” and the Greek mythology hydra and all of that.

And remember, Eagles just don’t draft ball carriers. It’s not only a Howie Roseman thing. They haven’t selected a first-round running back since 1986, so even if Robinson fell to 30, it would still be a deviation from the philosophical norm if the Birds took him at the bottom of the first round. More palatable yes, but a deviation nonetheless.

It seems like we’re overthinking the Bijan Robinson thing here. The guy is an immense talent, just a total stud, but he plays a less-important position on the side of the ball where the Eagles are already elite. You have to ask yourself if his addition would result in a significant improvement or a negligible improvement, and I believe it’s the latter, simply because the Birds would be going from elite to uber-elite instead of bad to good.