QBs, beware: Penn State's Chop Robinson taking talents, legendary nickname, to NFL
He was a big baby from a big family.
The parents named him Demeioun — Demeioun Robinson, to be exact — but his mother had other ideas.
Taking one look at this 14-pound bundle of, well, bundles, she decided a baby that big needed two nicknames.
And so, it wasn’t just a baby that was born, but a legend. The legend of Pork Chop.
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Today, he’s no baby, but a potential first-round draft pick as an edge rusher out of Penn State. He’s projected to come off the board around the time the Dolphins select, 21st overall. The Dolphins have a need on the edge.
That’s getting ahead of ourselves.
How Pork Chop became just Chop Robinson
As Pork Chop grew up, he began to slim down, he said, which presented a problem nickname-wise.
“I couldn’t have people calling me Pork Chop, so I just kept the Chop,” he said.
That’s why on most draft listings, you’ll see him listed as Chop Richardson. (If you’re looking for a name that gets into the heads of quarterbacks, that’s not a bad one.)
Except around the family home, including his nine siblings, he isn’t Pork Chop or Chop.
“My household name is Plump but nobody knows that,” Richardson said, clearly discounting the fact that by saying this at the NFL Combine in front of crowd of reporters, people were going to know it ASAP.
All this didn’t just make for fun chatter when NFL teams asked about his nicknames during their meetings with him. It also proved profitable via the graces of NIL. Robinson landed a deal with the Pennsylvania Pork Producers Council to promote (need we say it?) pork chops.
Robinson has been compared to Micah Parsons
Robinson is 6-feet-3 and 254 pounds. He runs the 40 in 4.48. NFL.com compares him to Dallas’ Micah Parsons but also lists him with “boom or bust” potential.
Robinson’s statistics jump off the page, but not in a good way. In 10 games last season he had 15 tackles and four sacks. Over his three-year career, he made 60 tackles — or just 11 more than UCLA’s Laiatu Latu made in 12 games last season alone.
When Robinson recorded 5.5 sacks in 2022, it represented a high for a career with just 11.5 sacks. Robinson cited the talent on the Nittany Lions, including fellow end Adisa Isaac, as a reason it helped his game. But it also could explain why stats were modest. Isaac, a possible second-round pick, had 37 tackles and 7.5 sacks.
“It was a great competition every day in practice when we do our drills,” Robinson said. “We’d both be at the front of the line trying to beat each other. Sometimes he’d beat me, I’d beat him.”
Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at hhabib@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal. Click here to subscribe.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Penn State's Chop Robinson taking talents, legendary nickname, to NFL
