Bijan Robinson wants to be 'better in all aspects' in 2026; are there even still areas where he can improve?

Can one of the league's best backs get even better in Year 4?

Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson is coming off an incredible season. He ran the ball 287 times for a career-best 1,478 yards and seven touchdowns, caught 79 passes for 820 yards and another four scores and led the NFL with 2,298 yards from scrimmage. He was a First Team All-Pro and an inner-circle candidate for Offensive Player of the Year, finishing fourth in the voting.

But Robinson isn't satisfied as he heads into Year 4 of his career.

"Last year was a cool year," Robinson said. "But this year I want to be even better in all aspects."

It's worth asking, then, if there are even areas where Robinson can improve after such an explosive season, and if so, what are they? That's why we're here today. To identify any possible areas of improvement.

One thing that should be extremely clear is this: We are going to pick the smallest of possible nits here. Robinson is coming off a season where he was exceptional at pretty much everything, so it's going to be really difficult for him to show improvement in any area, let alone all of them, as he says he wants to. But if there were areas that could be considered relative weaknesses for him a year ago, these would be those areas; and if he were to improve on them, he'd be even more dangerous than he already was in 2025.

Under-center runs

This is an important one when it comes to the scheme change being developed under new coach Kevin Stefanski. Atlanta had one of the lowest rates of under-center usage in the NFL last season and ranked fourth-to-last in volume of running-back runs from under center (127), according to Tru Media. Stefanski's Browns, meanwhile, ran the ball considerably more often from under center (210 attempts, 16th in the NFL) despite being terrible and running the ball with a running back 86 fewer times than the Falcons overall. 

To put it another way: Only 29.6% of the Falcons' running-back rush attempts came from under center last season, while the same was true of 61.2% of Cleveland's running-back attempts. That's a massive difference, and one that will come into play as the Falcons shift toward Stefanski's scheme. 

That makes it important that Robinson was also more effective when running out of the shotgun than he was when taking hand-offs from under center a year ago. Robinson averaged 5.5 yards per rush from the gun compared with only 4.3 per run when taking the hand-off from under center, according to Tru Media. Some of that is probably small-sample noise and the fact that the Falcons weren't quite as used to working under center as they were from shotgun, but when you're nitpicking and looking for areas where an already-great player can be even better, this one stands out.

Short-yardage runs

Robinson converted only 45.5% of his rush attempts on third- or fourth-and-1 into first downs last season, according to Tru Media. That rate checked in 44th out of the 49 running backs with at least 100 carries on the year. Backup Tyler Allgeier only ranked 38th in the same statistic, but he did at least convert at a 57.1% rate. 

Some of that extra finishing power may have been what led the Falcons to use Allgeier more often near the goal line. He essentially split goal-line snaps at 50-50 with Robinson compared with the 70-30 snap split they had everywhere else on the field. 

The good thing for Robinson is that this hasn't been a career-long issue. He converted over 75% of his third- and fourth-and-1 rushing attempts into first downs during each of his first two NFL seasons. 

Yards before contact

Robinson finished second in the NFL in yards after contact per rush in 2025, according to Tru Media, with only De'Von Achane beating his 3.95 YCO per attempt average. Robinson was comparatively average in creating yards before contact, however, ranking 30th (out of 49 qualifiers) at just 1.20 YBCO per attempt. 

Some of this can obviously be attributed to blocking. The Falcons checked in 10th in Pro Football Focus' run-blocking grades, but they were just 30th in ESPN's run-block win rate. The truth of their blocking probably lies somewhere in between those two poles, with them settling right around league average, which is where Robinson ranked in yards before contact. 

If he and the guys in front of him can improve on that this year, though, he'll be able to take even greater advantage of the fact that he is one of the best tackle-breakers and generators of yards after contact in the league. 

Pass blocking

Robinson comes off his weakest season as a blocker, according to Pro Football Focus. He yielded 13 pressures on just 83 pass-blocking snaps, per PFF, yielding one of the highest pressure rates in the league for a running back. 

That rate was on the high side for his career, but he has still given up 25 total pressures on 243 total snaps, where he has been asked to pass block across his first three years in the league. That's a pressure rate right around 10%, which obviously isn't ideal. If he can clean that up a bit, he'd be an even more dangerous player because teams wouldn't be able to attack him with blitzes when he's out there in pure passing situations.