‘No ceiling.’ After his first Dolphins training camp, mentorship is big for Chop Robinson
A couple months before the 2024 NFL Draft, Chop Robinson sent a DM to one of his favorite players.
“You’re the goat,” he recalled telling Bradley Chubb. By draft night, the two would be teammates, a rather surreal feeling punctuated by Chubb’s response:
“Wow look how God works,” Chubb told Robinson, according to the rookie outside linebacker.
With Robinson’s first training camp behind him, the Dolphins’ 2024 first-round pick has certainly shown promise. He’s super explosive and can certainly be a factor on passing downs. But one glaring issue that could potentially impact his playing time has emerged: setting the edge on the run. Luckily, Robinson has a stable of mentors constantly in his ear.
“I sit down with [Jaelan Phillips], watch film with him and Chubb and just listen,” Robinson said. “I take in all the information. And once I got the information, I just go work it.”
Chubb, of course, is someone Robinson has long since looked up to, but the rookie also has veterans such as Calais Campbell and Phillips in his corner as well. Phillips, in particular, should be a great resource for him seeing as how the 2021 first-round pick had similar struggles during his rookie year.
“It’s all about repetition and drilling into him the techniques and fundamentals — staying low, proper hand placement, things like that,” Phillips said Thursday. “Obviously the tackles in the league and tight ends in the league are a lot better than in college. It’s a bit of transition for anyone, but he’s been doing a great job handling it.”
The most important trait that Phillips wants to see in Robinson, however, is emotion.
“His get-off, his aggression, his leverage, everything is better than I was when I was a rookie, for sure,” Phillips said in mid-August. “His mentality too, like he doesn’t even celebrate. I’m trying to get him to be a little more emotive just because you could tell how that’s not enough for him, when he makes a big play, makes a TFL [tackle for loss] or whatever, that’s kind of the standard, which is an amazing thing.”
“Just having that dog mind-set,” Robinson said of Phillips’ best advice. “It’s not really nothing else that can help me separate besides technique and mind-set. Just having JP talk to me every single day, push me and tell me the the little details.”
Robinson’s athleticism happens to be one of his best traits but sometimes, his speed betrays him as he tends to overpursue on running plays. He did it against the Washington Commanders, who made a concerted effort to run his direction on multiple occasions during their preseason matchup against the Dolphins. Virtually the same thing happened again in the joint practice against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers though Robinson’s 1-on-1 rep against Tristan Wirfs — he briefly lifted the All-Pro tackle off the ground to sack the fictional quarterback — took the cake.
“I really just wanted to peek into other things like using power and stuff like that to set up my fastball,” Robinson said at the time. “Sitting down with Coach [Ryan] Crow, we were talking about that before we came out here. I came out here and started working different things and I was able to get underneath his pads.”
At just 21 years old, Robinson still has a lot of time to grow as a player. One of the traits that has impressed teammates and coaches alike, however, is his work ethic.
Robinson has “grown a lot just because we ask a lot from edge defenders in our defense,” coach Mike McDaniel said. Specifically, Robinson has learned “how to play the game within the game” and improved his “situational awareness.”
“He doesn’t waste a day out on the field, which is good news for us because we’re counting on him to contribute,” McDaniel continued. “That’s the great thing about Chop: he attacks each practice the way a veteran would as if you’re trying to get something out of it. ”
Linebacker David Long Jr. echoed some of McDaniel’s praise.
“He’s coming every day to get better,” Long said. “He’s open to learning, he takes coaching but he’s also a natural athlete. He has Calais right there on the side of him. He has Chubb, JP. He has some great people in front of him to learn from. There’s no ceiling for Chop.”
This story was originally published September 2, 2024 at 5:55 PM.
