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Rams Give Up on Greg Robinson

Pictured: Greg Robinson blocking no one.

Greg Robinson busting his way out of Los Angeles will hopefully be the final squeaky fart of Jeff Fisher’s tenure with the team. Thursday the Rams traded the former No. 2 overall pick to the Detroit Lions for a 2018 sixth round pick. They were lucky to get anything from him at all.

The writing was on the wall earlier in the week when it was reported that the Rams had Robinson working with the scout team and Jamon Brown working at right tackle with the starting unit in their mandatory minicamp. You could argue that Robinson’s fate was sealed when the team signed free agent left tackle Andrew Whitworth to replace him on the left side and then neglected to pick up Robinson’s fifth-year option.

But I think the team really wanted it to work out with Robinson. His size and athleticism speak for itself and the idea of plugging him in at right tackle seemed sound. Then they tried it. Yeah, they tried it.

Within a week of real practice, Robinson was demoted again and with the Lions in need of a tackle after the loss of starter Taylor Decker, the trade was made.

The Lions didn’t just sit on the Robinson deal in hopes he could work out. They also signed free agent Cyrus Kouandjio, formerly of the Buffalo Bills. The two men will compete for the starting left tackle job until Decker is ready to come back, hopefully at midseason. Don’t be surprised to see Robinson get beaten out there too.

While people want to throw some shade at Rams general manager Les Snead over Robinson’s bust-ation, make no mistake. Fisher controlled personnel in his time with the Rams. He ran the draft. He controlled the roster. Snead had input, sure, but ultimately Fisher’s call was final. That’s why when everything went south last season and Fisher attempted to throw the personnel division under the bus, they reacted poorly.

“It pissed me off because I knew it was meant as a shot,” a Rams source told Sports Illustrated. “You see it under that umbrella, We need to do a better job in personnel.’ OK, but you want everyone to think that you have full control. You can’t have it both ways, and it can’t always be the talent. Look at the roster, 2012 to now. In ’12, Jeff did a masterful job with what he was given. But we’ve gotten more talent, and we’ve gotten worse.”

Hell, the reason Fisher chose the Rams over the Miami Dolphins is so he would have final say in player acquisitions.

Consistently, Fisher proved he could do one thing when it came to evaluating players; he was spot on when it came to defense. In his first draft, he picked defensive tackle Michael Brockers in the first round, Janoris Jenkins in the second round, then stupidly traded down from No. 45 thinking Bobby Wagner would be there when the Rams picked again at No. 50. He was not. But the fact that he had Wagner targeted shows his evaluation was sound. The third round in 2012? Trumaine Johnson. Only one defensive pick that year didn’t turn into an NFL star and it was seventh rounder Aaron Brown.

2013 brought in Alec Ogletree in the first round and safety T.J. McDonald in the third. The Robinson draft in 2014 also hauled in Aaron Donald, one of the best players in the NFL, Lamarcus Joyner Maurice Alexander and E.J. Gaines.

Fisher’s only good offensive draft was in 2015 when he picked Todd Gurley, Rob Havenstein, Jamon Brown, Sean Mannion and Andrew Donnal. Havenstein is the starting left guard, Brown is the the starting left tackle. Donnel is pushing for that spot too.

While Fisher was an idiot when it came to offense and hired morons to coach his offense, Sean McVay is a real pro. All it took is a week in action to see that Robinson wasn’t the guy. It wasn’t Robinson’s athleticism, it wasn’t his work ethic. The kid just can’t do the job at an NFL level.

“I think he did what we asked,” McVay told ESPN. “We felt like it was good for both sides. That was kind of really what went into that decision. But in terms of seeing a guy that didn’t want to be great and wasn’t working at it. I didn’t ever sense that. …We wish Greg nothing but the best, but we felt like it was going to be something that was best for our team and the best for Greg.”

While a sixth-rounder might seem like shitty compensation for a former No. 2 pick, Robinson was going to be a free agent at the end of the season. He’d obviously not won any job and would have only stepped onto the field in an emergency. At least this way the Rams get something in return for Fisher’s flub.

“Since we drafted Greg, he has been committed to our organization, his teammates and community outreach,” Snead said in a statement. “We appreciate his decision and the effort he’s put forth over the past three seasons. We wish him the best as he embarks on this new chapter.”

According to Pro Football Focus, Robinson graded out as the eighth worst starting tackle in the league, No. 71 out of 78 guys who played a down in 2016. He committed 31 penalties over the last two seasons, the most in the NFL.

The Rams now have $3.3 million more to use in salary cap space. Aaron Donald and the team are already working on an extension and you have to believe they want to get Trumaine Johnson off his franchise tender and into a real contract. They’ll need to start working on new deals for Alec Ogletree and probably Lamarcus Joyner.

It’s all a real shame. Robinson always seemed like a super kid and you could see why a coach might be enamored with a 6-5, 332-pound athletic gentle giant. When asked about switching to right tackle earlier in the offseason, Robinson said something I thought was downright pitiful.

“Since the beginning, I’ve been trying my best,” he said.

He was evaluated too high and drafted too high and neither of those facts are Robinson’s fault. Hopefully now cut loose from his No. 2 expectations he can find a career in the NFL and a coach with the time and open roster spot to get him there.

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Written by Adam Greene

Adam Greene is a writer and photographer based out of East Tennessee. His work has appeared on Cracked.com, in USA Today, the Associated Press, the Chicago Cubs Vineline Magazine, AskMen.com and many other publications.

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