Does Steelers rookie LB Mark Robinson have starting upside?

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been impressed with their rookie linebacker, but does Mark Robinson have enough upside to be a starter in the NFL someday? 

We haven’t even kicked off the 2022 NFL season yet and already fans are getting fed up with the lackluster play of linebacker Devin Bush. Despite a lofty draft capital investment that required the Pittsburgh Steelers to move up to the 10th overall pick to select him in 2019, Bush has been a colossal disappointment. Sadly, the former first-round pick doesn’t seem to have improved much during the preseason.

Myles Jack has played sparingly early in the first two exhibition games, but he looks like he’s going to be a solid addition to the team. Even if he proves to be that guy for the Steelers, Pittsburgh is in desperate need of another linebacker to roam the field alongside him, and most fans feel they have seen enough of both Bush and backup Robert Spillane.

One player who is drawing a lot of buzz after his second exhibition performance is seventh-round linebacker, Mark Robinson. Robinson was a former positional convert in college and doesn’t have a ton of starting experience at inside linebacker. However, what we have seen from him has been pretty impressive.

In his first two games, Robinson has turned heads with a few splash plays, including a pivotal forced fumble with under two minutes remaining in the first game vs the Seahawks and a thunderous hit on a Jaguars receiver last week. Despite limited action coming primarily in the second half of these contests, Robinson has racked up 10 tackles, 1.0 sacks, and 1 QB hit so far, via ESPN.

During the final training camp practices, Mark Robinson was earning some snaps with the first team defense with Devin Bush sidelined. It’s clear that the rookie linebacker has turned heads, but does he have what it takes to be a starter in the NFL?

Steelers might not be getting a starter out of Robinson

As much as I would like to hop on this hype train, I’m going to try to be realistic here. Though I agree that he has been impressive, Mark Robinson was a seventh-round draft choice for a reason.

There’s no question that he possesses the grit, energy, physically, aggression, and hustle that’s required to play the positions (which is more than we can say about at least one linebacker on the team), Robinson’s lack of elite traits make his upside very limited at the NFL level.

According to Mockdraftable’s database, Robinson is remarkably undersized. At 5’11” he’s already at a bit of a size disadvantage (much like Bush), but his arm length and wingspan make him one of the most compact linebackers we have seen enter the NFL since 1999.

This might not seem like a big issue, but we’ve already seen several missed tackles from Robinson during the preseason. Length also plays a critical role when it comes to pass defense. In addition, Robinson is just a very average athlete overall, which doesn’t help his cause.

On top of being undersized, Robinson is roughly a 4.7-speed guy who lacks great exposition or change of direction. While his 98th percentile bench press reps are fantastic, Robinson is a relatively poor athlete compared to starting NFL linebacker around the league.

This doesn’t necessarily mean he will fail if given the opportunity to become a starter, but he could be very limited in his role.

Throughout the summer, Robinson has drawn comparisons to former Steelers linebacker, Vince Williams. I can see this in a lot of ways. Williams did not possess great size and was an even worse testing athlete than Robinson was coming out of college. Both players possess a similar downhill, physical play style, which makes Williams an easy comparison.

However, this is what we in the football world describe as an ‘outlier.’ For every Vince Williams that turns out, there are a dozen undersized, unathletic linebackers who don’t.

I do think that Mark Robinson has that dog in him and he’s going to be a player who just continues to impress the coaching staff. However, I would caution Steelers fans not to look at him as the answer to the problem that Devin Bush has created. My hope is that he can be an excellent special teams player and work his way into a role on running downs for Pittsburgh in the near future.