Training camp is two weeks out and Bijan Robinson still doesn’t have a contract extension, which means the Atlanta Falcons are approximately fourteen days from learning a very expensive lesson about what happens when you spend a top-10 pick on a running back and then try to pay him like he should be grateful.
Dan Graziano reported for ESPN back in June that extension talks are ongoing. Ongoing. For the guy who just finished the 2025 season with 1,478 rushing yards (fourth in the NFL), 820 receiving yards, eleven touchdowns, and a First Team All-Pro nod. The guy coaches, scouts, and executives voted the best running back in the league in an ESPN poll. The only player in NFL history with 1,400-plus rush yards and 810-plus receiving yards in a single season. That guy. Ongoing talks.
https://x.com/AdamSchefter/status/2069518620258906572
The Falcons used the eighth overall pick in the 2023 draft on Robinson. Eighth. That’s a quarterback pick. That’s a generational edge rusher pick. Atlanta looked at the board, passed on everyone else, and said: this running back is worth a top-ten selection. And now they’re going to sit here with their arms crossed while Nicole Lynn (his agent at Klutch Sports, who also reps Jalen Hurts and Myles Garrett) makes noise publicly and the calendar marches toward August.
The market has already spoken. Barkley’s $20.6 million per year is the high-water mark. Christian McCaffrey sits at $19 million. De’Von Achane (who is good, don’t get me wrong, but is not Bijan Robinson) just got $16 million a year. Bijan’s camp is pushing to meet or beat Barkley’s number and they are not wrong for it. Robinson has the production to back every dollar of that ask.
Atlanta just paid Kyle Pitts — three years, $54 million, $36 million guaranteed — for a tight end who missed significant time and hasn’t come close to his rookie-year ceiling. They found that money. The Falcons can locate funds when they want to.
Now, to be fair, and I say this through gritted teeth, the Falcons did exercise Robinson’s fifth-year option, locking him in for 2027 at $11.32 million. So they haven’t completely abandoned him. They’re not letting him walk. They exercised the option, they’re paying him, they probably tell themselves that’s a reasonable bridge while they work out the long-term math. Fine. That’s the argument for their side.
Except $11.32 million for the best running back in football — who just put up a 93-yard touchdown run that is now a franchise record — is an insult dressed up as a compromise. That’s not a bridge. That’s a lowball with extra steps. And Jahmyr Gibbs is sitting in Detroit in the exact same situation, which means we might have two of the best young backs in the NFL showing up to camp unhappy in the same week.
Atlanta’s front office has had a complicated offseason to put it charitably. You want your best offensive player — the one guy defenses have to game-plan around, the engine of everything you want to do on that side of the ball — walking into training camp motivated and locked in, not calculating what he’s leaving on the table every time he takes a handoff.
Mike Florio already told Robinson to hold out. Publicly. On the record.
The Falcons drafted Bijan eighth overall because they believed he was worth it. He has spent three seasons proving them right, and then some. Either they meant it or they didn’t.
Pay the man.
