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The Atlanta Falcons still feel the need to defend the team’s decision to select Bijan Robinson with such a high pick in the first round. It’s not Robinson, per se, but the idea of taking a running back so early in the process.

It is a recent trend that suggests that NFL teams not use a prime selection for a tailback. The thinking is that these tailbacks platoon, anyway. Plus, each already has a ton of carries, meaning their bodies may break down before their next contract from the wear and tear.

So why did the Falcons select Bijan Robinson, the Texas Longhorn and Doak Walker winner, with the eighth pick of the draft? Terry Fontenot, the Falcons general manager, explained why during an interview this week with Rich Eisen.

“We can have these rules or people can have these rules that you don’t take a running back at a certain point or guard at a certain point, you have to take a premium position,” he said. “What we say is tell me the player. Who is the particular running back that’s sitting there? When it’s a guy like Bijan Robinson in the running back box. When you talk about positionless football, he’s an impact offensive player.

“Where ever he is, where ever you get him the ball, he’s a playmaker,” Fontenot said of Bijan Robinson. “He’s a touchdown maker, he’s a home run hitter. And he’s a better person than he is a player so we know he’s going to reach his ceiling. We believe he’s one of the better players in the draft, one of the better people in the draft. So we were really excited to pull that card off the board.”

Selections of Bijan Robinson, Jahmyr Gibbs defied first-round trends

The trend is somewhat recent. After Robinson came off the board, Detroit pulled Alabama tailback Jahmyr Gibbs at No. 12. ESPN draft gurus Mel Kiper and Todd McShay both gushed about Bijan Robinson and said he should be a top 10 player. Kiper initially projected that the Cowboys may keep Robinson in state.

But those trends were issues. A year ago, there were zero running backs selected in the first round. Saquon Barkley, who went No. 2 to the Giants in 2018, was the last tailback before Robinson to go in the top 10 of the first round. In 2017, two backs did so — LSU’s Leonard Fournette (4th to the Jaguars) and Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey (8th to the Panthers). And in 2016, the Cowboys selected Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott with the fourth pick.

If you sift through those top 10 names, Barkley is the only back still with his original team. The recent trend is for teams to take a tailback late in the first round, if that.

So let’s go back Fontenot and Bijan Robinson. Fontenot again focuses on positionless football.

“When we sit down and go through it, what’s the vision for this player,” Fontenot said of the scouting and decision making. “How are they going to be utilized. And how are they going to fit in with what we do. …Again, we don’t put him in a running back box.”

Fontenot added: “When we’re taking players, we’re not thinking about position. We’re thinking about the impact they’re going to have for us, And we’re thinking about the vision and how we’re going to utilize them.”

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