Bijan Robinson is widely considered a generational talent, due not just to his abilities as a ball-carrier but also to the completeness and dynamism lent to his game by his skills as a pass-catcher. In the modern NFL, such a versatile element to a top-end running back’s repertoire has frequently been a big deal in producing elite fantasy seasons. There have been 109 runners in the last ten years who averaged at least 15 PPR points per game in a single season (the approximate threshold for low-end RB1-level production in recent years), a group that collectively averaged 3.6 receptions and 74.0 rushing yards per game during those seasons. Among just 33 backs who averaged at least 20 points per game during that time-frame (the approximate threshold for high-end RB1-level production), those averages are 4.4 receptions and 84.8 rushing yards per game. Among the seven runners who averaged at least 25 points per game (the sort of league-winning-level production that we don’t see in every season), those averages are 5.3 receptions and 84.9 rushing yards per game.

If we completely divide those categories into league-winners, elite producers, and run-of-the-mill RB1s, we get the following scale of receiving and rushing production relative to the collective averages for the RB1 crop:

So, while league-winning backs rush for essentially the same yardage on a per-game basis as do the elite backs in the tier below, and while both those groups improve upon simple RB1-level rushing production by just over 20%, the differences in receiving production as we scale up from basic RB1 status are much more stark, with elites more than 25% better and league-winners far more productive in the passing game than “average” RB1s.

If Robinson is good enough to access that league-winning level of production, it will be because he is an elite receiver on top of being a functional rusher of the football, and if he’s not an elite receiver, his upside will likely be capped below the 25-PPG threshold (not that being, say, a 23-PPG scorer is a bad thing, but we’re talking about an alleged generational talent here, so a high bar feels appropriate).

Let’s examine Bijan’s receiving profile to see if the data matches his reputation in that area:

On top of raw production numbers (in total receptions, receptions per game, and Target Share) that land between the 65th and 79th percentiles, Robinson has been a highly efficient receiver throughout his career. As was likely the case with Deuce Vaughn, Robinson’s raw catch rate was probably suppressed due to a usage profile with a relatively high degree of difficulty (something we’ll touch on in a second), and his True Catch Rate (which counts only the targets that Sports Info Solutions deemed “catchable”) mark of 90.9% exceeds those belonging to Jahmyr Gibbs, Deuce Vaughn, and past prospects like Najee Harris and Michael Carter.

Beyond that, there isn’t another back in this class with a more robust through-the-air efficiency profile than Bijan boasts: his career mark in yards per target is highest in the class, his career mark in yards per reception is highest in the class (by a 1.6-yard margin over Gibbs, the same gap that exists between Gibbs and Travis Dye), and his career mark in YAC per reception is third in the class, tied with both Gibbs and Kenny McIntosh and trailing only Tyjae Spears and Zach Evans, who did their damage in the American Athletic Conference and on half of Bijan’s career receptions volume, respectively.

Efficiency numbers (especially YAC per reception, for obvious reasons) are oftentimes more reflective of a player’s ability with the ball in his hands than they are of his ability purely as a receiver (which is how a non-receiver like Derrick Henry manages to average a ridiculous 16.8 yards per reception in college), but Robinson’s usage as a collegiate pass-catcher indicates that he was far more than a screen pass specialist with nice moves after the catch:

We see here that Bijan was moved around the formation quite a bit while also running a larger percentage of advanced route types (which essentially excludes screens and checkdowns of various kinds) and being targeted further downfield than most college runners do and are, all things that speak to a high level of versatility beyond the base-level requirements that backs should be able to catch the ball and make something happen afterwards.

Such varied deployment is rare for a player of Robinson’s size; alignment and depth of target data is available going back to 2016, and among eventual draftees who had an aDOT above the 1-yard mark while also lining up out wide or in the slot at least 10% of the time (marks that are conveniently round as well as coming in at approximately the 60th percentiles) in that time-frame, the average Combine or Pro Day weight is just 205 pounds. That represents a steep drop-off from the average of 214 pounds weighed by all draftee backs in general, and means that Robinson is a rare specimen among runners with versatile receiving skill-sets: the only other eventual NFL backs of above-average size to post such numbers in college are Rodney Anderson, Dameon Pierce, Kenneth Dixon, Joe Mixon, and Rashaad Penny. Anderson was a four-star recruit at Oklahoma who ran for nearly 1200 yards in 2017 in between a string of serious injuries that ultimately derailed his career, Dixon was a per-touch stud in the NFL after breaking the NCAA’s career touchdown record and before he hit his own rough patch of injuries and knuckle-headedness, and we know that Pierce, Mixon, and Penny all turned out to be above-average starting players in the NFL. We obviously have higher hopes for Bijan than even those guys have reached, but a) he’s well over the usage thresholds we used for this mini-study, and b) the point is that big backs who see receiving usage of this sort are both rare and typically very good. Big running backs who can catch swing passes and screens are like centers with some spot-up three-point ability circa 2008, but big running backs who can run legitimate routes and attack defenses downfield are like modern 7-footers who can create their own shot from nearly anywhere on the floor. It’s nice to have Mehmet Okur on your team, but it’s a different thing entirely to trot out Joel Embiid.

Bijan Robinson’s combination of size, athleticism, and downfield receiving chops make him the running back equivalent of full-skillset NBA big men like Joel Embiid.

The other numbers on the above table indicate that Robinson was targeted a bit below CFB-wide average rates on a per-route basis overall, but slightly above those rates when looking only at advanced route types, elements of Bijan’s profile that crystallized over the course of his career. The lack of big-time passing game weapons at Texas meant that Robinson earned targets at high rates on basic, checkdown-type routes early on (36.3% more often than would be expected based on his route tree as a true freshman in 2020, a mark in the 75th percentile), but with guys like Xavier Worthy and Ja’Tavion Sanders emerging over the last two seasons (as well as the transition from Tom Herman to Steve Sarkisian as head coach), his diet of targets on basic routes fell off a cliff, with RATEs of just 72.6% and 51.4%, respectively, in 2021 and 2022. At the same time, however, Bijan’s RATE on advanced routes grew in every season of his career; he started below the 40th percentile with a mark of just 67.9% as a freshman, but then posted figures of 114.4% and 139.1%, respectively, in the last two years.

What we’re left with at the end is a 21-year old player who has been very productive in the receiving game for top-25 offenses without the common crutch of Mickey Mouse usage that often inflates volume numbers beyond what they realistically represent of player ability. That should give us more confidence in the translatability of Robinson’s receiving chops to the NFL than we had even for other big-time prospects with high-volume receiving profiles like Todd Gurley, DeMarco Murray, and Le’Veon Bell, but it’s worth keeping in mind that -- even considering how air-tight Bijan’s case seems to be -- such a projections are not easy ones to make.

Part of what makes Robinson a better prospect than someone like Jahmyr Gibbs is that, on top of the high-end receiving skills that they both boast (though Gibbs is probably better in that area), Bijan’s size gives him a workhorse escape hatch in the event that his pass-catching chops never fully materialize in the NFL, something that the 199-pound Gibbs simply does not have access to. In other words, if Gibbs goes to an offense that (for whatever reason) can’t or doesn’t fully unlock him in the passing game, he’ll be a massive disappointment, while the same fate for Bijan would likely result in him “simply” being a 15-carry-per-game workhorse that puts up mid-RB1 numbers for the duration of his rookie contract in much the same vein as the career arc that Joe Mixon has been on.

You wouldn’t know it based on his NFL production, but Joe Mixon was one of the best pass-catching running back prospects we’ve seen in the last decade.

The Mixon experience should be a cautionary tale on the other side of that coin, however, showing that the hypothetical difference-maker in Robinson’s profile -- his unique receiving skills -- is often not a great bet to fully materialize in the pros, particularly for bigger backs who don’t absolutely need to be used as receivers in order to justify their presence on the field, a group that Bijan certainly belongs to. Mixon himself was one of the best out-of-the-backfield receiving weapons we’ve seen in recent college football history, with marks above the 80th percentile in each of Target Share, receptions per game, yards per reception, aDOT, slot/wide alignment percentage, YAC per reception, yards per target, and catch rate, all on top of being 6’1 and 218 pounds. Despite showing that ability as an amateur, last season (his sixth in the league) was Mixon’s first with more than 43 receptions in the NFL. Similarly, Saquon Barkley -- the most common point of comparison I see drawn for Bijan -- was a 2.0 aDOT guy with 102 receptions and 82nd-percentile per-target efficiency for his career at Penn State, and he hasn’t eclipsed 57 receptions in a single year since he was a rookie while also running higher-than-average percentages of basic route types in every season of his NFL career.

The point is that for even the most elite pass-catching running backs, elite pass-catching production and usage are far from guarantees at the NFL level, particularly for guys with size that allows them to be used as high-volume rushers. Such a dynamic is both good and bad for Bijan Robinson, as his size gives him a high floor via the workhorse escape hatch at the same time as it gives his future offensive coaching staff an easy out from actually having to use him creatively or frequently in the passing game. Because of that, Bijan is the no-doubt RB1 in this class, and also because of that, you can’t be surprised five years from now when we look back on Robinson’s NFL career and find that half of what made him such a good prospect was effectively wasted.