His Beating Heart
Once Considered "On Life Support," Birds 2nd-Year DT Has Emerged
PHILADELPHIA – Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio didn’t mince words last week when assessing the preseason performance of second-year defensive tackle Ty Robinson.
“He came to life,” Fangio exclaimed. “He’s been on life support since he’s been here, but he came to life and hopefully that will continue.”
The response was in reference to Robinson’s active outing in the opener against the Baltimore Ravens, the first true measuring stick in the evaluation process.
The outcome, of course, was meaningless, though the intended purpose of the preseason is to serve as a barometer for someone like Robinson, who notched a sack, tackle for loss and quarterback hit.
For an encore, the 25-year-old Robinson responded with a pair of sacks, three tackles for loss and three quarterback hits, capping a productive week in Foxborough. The box score, however, doesn’t exactly paint the full picture of Robinson’s recent emergence.
Perhaps most encouraging is how Robinson has looked after a quiet start to training camp. He’s quicker off the ball and appreciably more violent at the point of attack, reintroducing the mean streak that influenced his five-year run at Nebraska.
In college, Robinson was the centerpiece of the Cornhuskers’ defense. Teams needed to account for his whereabouts and formulate a plan to neutralize him, or Robinson would make them pay.
Coming into the NFL as a fourth-round pick, it was widely expected he’d claim a rotational role and experience early success. In hindsight, those ambitious projections should have been tempered. Robinson was stepping into a deep defensive room, where opportunities for snaps would be few and far between. In fairness, Robinson last summer was outperformed by fourth-year interior lineman Byron Young and was never able to climb the pecking order.
But after a vanilla rookie campaign in which he appeared in 11 games, logging 104 defensive snaps, Robinson is proving he belongs.
“Well, I feel like, you just gotta do better, right?” he said. “Like, last year wasn’t good enough, so I can’t do the same thing I did prior to that. Obviously, I need to change some things up, so when I did my training in the offseason, I really focused on those key aspects I felt like I needed to improve. And then, just coming out here and trusting myself and being confident that what I did in the offseason does work.”
During exit meetings last January, Robinson revealed, defensive line coach Clint Hurtt expressed to him a desire to fixate on block destruction, mobility and flexibility over the offseason. The strength component, Robinson maintained, was always there, but the challenge in the ensuing months was translating that to functional movements, to increase his fluidity. He remained in Philadelphia during the offseason months, working with the Eagles’ training staff to ensure he would deliver on Hurtt’s directive.
Speaking to reporters this spring, Hurtt offered a promising update regarding Robinson’s progress, setting the stage for what was to come.
“He’s gotten better,” Hurtt said in May. “He’s in excellent shape. He’s stronger. He’s moving better. I would say that about Byron Young as well. It’s always like, d-line is such a fundamental position. Really, playing on the trenches on both sides of the ball. I would say he showed promise last year.
“You’re strong coming in, but it’s different when you’re playing against grown men every single day. But now, understanding the scheme, the system, he’s stronger and he’s just better. He’s taken some nice strides.”
Robinson’s growth this summer has been one of the more encouraging developments of training camp. It’s an understatedly important one, too, when looking ahead. For perspective, fellow linemates Young and Moro Ojomo are entering the final years of the rookie deals, likely necessitating a more prominent role for Robinson in 2027, assuming he stays on schedule.
Robinson’s slower start to camp appeared to generate some outside angst, though he picked it up halfway through. Maybe his mid-camp dust-up with offensive lineman Tyler Steen unlocked something in Robinson, awakening his confidence.
Regardless, the flashes, atypical to the untrained eye a year ago, have become increasingly more frequent the second time around. Observing Robinson in practices, the driving force fueling his progression appeared to be his enhanced mobility when encountering interior offensive linemen.
He confirmed that.
“Oh, yeah, 100 percent,” he said. “Being able to kind of sit more in my stance and to kind of feel more power through my legs and core, being down in my stance. And then obviously, with a year under my belt, being able to have the experience of going against the NFL offense and kind of how those work. And now, I feel a lot more confident when I’m out there, looking at the formations, looking at the personnel and kind of understanding what possibilities I can get.”
To characterize Robinson as some training camp revelation would probably be unfair. Progress isn’t linear, and Robinson was a fourth-round pick with obvious talent.
The rate at which a player develops varies for different reasons, and the Eagles, who value the player development aspect of team-building, deserved the benefit of the doubt with Robinson, if only for one more season.
Given an opportunity to follow up on his comment from last week, Fangio on Wednesday offered an explanation for Robinson’s emergence. And, of course, the veteran coordinator was sure to include another added motivator.
“Everybody’s a little different, but you see it every year – some guys, they’re struggling, struggling, struggling,” Fangio explained. “It’s just something happens that they’re able to turn the corner a little bit. It just so happened that it was him in the first preseason game, and he carried it over to last week.
“Hopefully, this will continue. Now, he’s got to be able to do it against the frontline players too.”
— Andrew DiCecco (@AndrewDiCecco) is a Staff Reporter/Content Producer for InsideTheBirds.com.
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