The Falcons made one big change on offense on Sunday, starting Taylor Heinicke at quarterback instead of Desmond Ridder. But another change many fans have been clamoring for still hasn’t happened: Tyler Allgeier continues to get more carries than Bijan Robinson.
On Sunday against the Vikings, the Falcons had Allgeier run the ball 12 times for 39 yards, while Robinson ran the ball 11 times for 51 yards. That continues the trend from the entire season: The split of carries tips slightly in Allgeier’s favor, but Robinson is more effective on his runs.
So far this season Allgeier has 116 carries for 371 yards, while Robinson has 103 carries for 517 yards. That’s an average of 3.2 yards per carry for Allgeier and 5.0 yards per carry for Robinson.
If Allgeier were picking up a lot of first downs in short-yardage situations, perhaps it would be justifiable to keep feeding the running back who’s averaging almost two yards per carry less, but that isn’t the case: Robinson has run for 26 first downs, while Allgeier has run for 24 first downs. Robinson has two more first downs on 13 fewer carries.
Robinson does get more passes thrown his way than Allgeier does (Robinson has caught 28 of 41 targets for 197 yards while Allgeier has caught 11 of 16 targets for 76 yards), so their touches this season are almost identical: Robinson has 131 touches and Allgeier has 127 touches.
But the question remains: Why take Robinson with the No. 8 overall pick in the draft, only to have him split time with a less effective running back who was already on the roster? With Falcons head coach Arthur Smith possibly coaching for his job over the last eight games of the season, he may need to re-think the usage of his two running backs.