Let’s give LA Rams A’Shawn Robinson his due respect

The LA Rams’ tale of how defensive lineman A’Shawn Robinson has grown in his role on this defense over the past two years is impressive. The curious part of that tale is how few persons are telling it. After all,  A’Shawn Robinson is a veteran of the NFL, a big and powerful man who was no longer playing for a paycheck.

But he has always held onto the dream of playing for the Lombardi.

There were two veteran players who came to the LA Rams from the Detroit Lions seeking meaningful football in February. Everyone knows that veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford requested and approved a trade that would pack up himself and his entire family to relocate to Los Angeles, California, where he could try to earn a Super Bowl ring many years into his NFL career.

But he was not the first to do so. The first on the list is veteran defensive lineman A’Shawn Robinson, a young man who had witnessed his role with the Detroit Lions diminish as rapidly as it had grown. Robinson found himself being stuck in the rotational limbo of playing half the defensive snaps, filling a role of a nose tackle, gobbling blockers, and stuffing runs, for a team that was going nowhere.

Time for me to fly

Robinson was dissatisfied with the Lions. In fact, some reports rumored that he had been threatened by the Lions’ former head coach Matt Patricia to ruin his NFL career if he didn’t toe the line.

Those rumors were confirmed, in part, when the Lions fired head coach Matt Patricia. That dismissal prompted a number of former Lions players to take to social media to comment on the matter. A’Shawn Robinson’s Twitter account was particularly active over the event, and the accusations left little doubt why.

That clash resulted in Robinson testing the NFL Free Agency market, and the LA Rams subsequently signing him in 2020. The rest is history.