Steelers WR Allen Robinson Downplays Revenge Game vs. Rams: ‘It’s Nothing’

PITTSBURGH — It’s homecoming weekend in a lot of places around the country this week, and Pittsburgh Steelers Allen Robinson II will have a homecoming this Sunday, but probably not the kind that he’s going to celebrate.

Robinson is a Detroit native who played college football at Penn State and lives in New Jersey. His NFL career has taken him to Chicago, Jacksonville and Pittsburgh, but it will be a one-year 2022 stop in Los Angeles that he’ll be re-living this week.

Robinson signed a three-year, $46.5 million contract with the Rams last March as the team’s big-time free agent addition in the wake of its Super Bowl win that February. This offseason, he was traded to the Steelers for the smallest of possible returns, an exchange of seventh-round draft picks.

After putting up 1,000-yard seasons in 2019 and 2020 with the Rams, Robinson scuffled through a tough season in Chicago in 2021. The thought was that by joining a more-dynamic Rams offense, he’d be able to regain his previous form. Instead, he was even worse, catching just 33 passes for 339 yards on the season.

When he arrived in Pittsburgh this spring, Robinson suggested that he wasn’t used properly during his time in L.A.

“I’m learning a lot about fit,” he said. “I think that actually Patrick Beverley said it best. If you’re a fork, you don’t want to be used as a spoon the majority at a time. I think that makes it just tough on everybody.”

But Robinson isn’t approaching this Sunday as any kind of revenge game against his former team.

“For me, the approach is the same,” he said. “There’s no emotion, really. For us, it’s a big week, because it’s our next game. It’s a chance for us to continue to go out there and stack a W to our win column. All the other stuff, it’s not emotion. It’s nothing. I’m just going there ready to play.”

The one change for Robinson is that this week, he’ll have a fairly intricate knowledge of the opposing squad, so he hopes he can share that information to help the Steelers prep for their road trip.

“Whatever knowledge I can share as far as defensive structure and things like that, I have the knowledge and the skills to be able to do that,” Robinson said. “But again, for me, it doesn’t change my weekly approach or anything like that.”

Instead of worrying about his former team, Robinson has focused on helping to make the Steelers better.