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Rams sign Allen Robinson, and OBJ may still be in their plans | You Pod to Win the Game

Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and The Underdog Football Show’s Josh Norris discuss the Rams signing of former Bears’ wide receiver Allen Robinson. What will he bring to the Super Bowl Champions? Could there still be room for Odell Beckham Jr? Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

[CHEERING]

CHARLES ROBINSON: Allen Robinson.

JOSH NORRIS: Oh yeah.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Allen Robinson ends up with the Rams. So you're like, OK. Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, now Allen Robinson, Van Jefferson, by the way. And the funny thing is, in my mind, I was like, oh, OBJ, nope. I'm telling you, I'm hearing through the grapevine that they still want to see if they can figure out how to bring OBJ back.

I'm guessing on a one-year deal. But, listen, I'm just telling you that when I was like, oh, slam the door on Odell Beckham Jr., I was like hold your horses there, son. Like, that's not necessarily true. And I'm with you. I'm like there's only so many footballs. Like, and you have other needs. You can't line up five dudes. It would be the spread of spread, forget running backs.

JOSH NORRIS: It's backyard flag football. That's what it is, Charles.

CHARLES ROBINSON: It would be crazy. Like, I'm just, that's the only--

JOSH NORRIS: "NFL Street." To keep this brief, and when you say that and when Jordan Rodriguez says that, I totally buy it. It's a three-year, $45 million contract, $30 million guaranteed. Like, I thought Allen Robinson, that's huge money.

CHARLES ROBINSON: It's big money.

JOSH NORRIS: Especially after I think the year that Allen Robinson had, which was a down year. And, look, we've seen the LA sunlight be the ultimate natural elixir for some other wide receivers and some other players, maybe that's the case here. Because, look, if you hate the spot that you're in, you play worse or you aren't as good at work. Like, that happens.

My view just very briefly on how this fits with everyone else. Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods do a lot of the similar things in terms of type of formation, some really cool stuff in the running game. That's why they play about 85% in 11-personnel. Once Robert Woods left, it took 'em some time, you know this, to figure out what to do with Odell because he wasn't a replacement for Robert Woods when he was brought in. Like he was supposed to be on top of, you know?

But where Odell made really his mark last year was in the red zone and the end zone. Like, inside the 10-yard targets, he had 12 of them last year, he scored a touchdown on eight. Eight touchdowns on 12 targets inside the 10. And very few teams out there throw as much as the Rams do inside the 5 and inside the 10.

So if you get Allen Robinson in one-on-one situations there, to me, that's where his biggest impact is going to be. And I think since like 2016, he hasn't had a season of over seven touchdowns. I bet he hits that mark this year if that's his number one role, which seems small, and that's a lot of money for it. But that's pretty big when you want to put up touchdowns.

CHARLES ROBINSON: No. Yeah, I'm with you. That's a big role. I mean, you can say that's cost effective. Scoring points is cost effective. No one gives a [BLEEP] about yardage, OK? You give me give me an 800-yard receiver who's got 12, 13 touchdowns, that's pretty bad ass. I'll pay that guy.

JOSH NORRIS: I think that's where we're headed to.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah. I mean, I'll pay that guy any day of the week. And I'm not going to say I don't get trying to be greedy and keep Odell around. Because, A, as you learned, wide receivers suffered injuries. Happened with Cooper Kupp, you lost him during a Super Bowl run. Happened with Robert Woods, lost him during a Super Bowl run. Never a bad thing to have options on the table and create competition.

And, look, I'm not going to say your purposely depressing Van Jefferson's value, but if you spread out a lot of different catches to a lot of different players, but you know you really like that guy and you want to sign him to a long term deal when you end up jettisoning Odell or there's somebody else that maybe doesn't work out in that mix, it's a more affordable option than he would have been.