Allen Robinson played the best game of his first season as a member of the Chicago Bears with fractured ribs.
During an appearance on Bears All-Access with radio play-by-play voice Jeff Joniak, radio partner Tom Thayer, and NFL analyst Jim Miller, Robinson revealed his injury when asked what will be different about this offseason and where his focus would be as he moved toward 2019.
“I’m still getting back to 100 percent,” Robinson said. “I was nursing an injury when I fractured my ribs late in the season last year. Just kind of working through that.”
If you’ll recall, Robinson first suffered injured ribs while making a diving catch in Week 16 against the San Francisco 49ers. But after a trip to the sidelines for medical attention, Robinson returned and finished the game. With the Bears having their playoff spot wrapped up, Robinson sat out the team’s Week 17 win against the Minnesota Vikings with injured ribs. Robinson was able to ramp it up again when the playoffs began and gutted out a 10-catch, 143-yard receiving performance against the Philadelphia Eagles on Wild-Card Sunday. And he did it with fractured ribs … wow!
While Robinson mentioned he isn’t at 100 percent yet, he also made note that he plans on working out parts of his body he wasn’t able to at this time last year while he was recovering from the ACL injury that cost him to miss most of the 2017 season. I suppose that can be taken as a positive sign that Robinson will be fully healthy sooner, rather than later.
It’s a shame Robinson’s huge game to waste in a losing effort, because in an alternate universe where the Bears beat the Eagles, Robinson’s performance would have been received much differently. But still … that’s an all-time great performance, one that deserves far more kudos than it received (especially now that we know Robinson was pretty banged up).
You can listen to Robinson and the entire episode of Bears All-Access here: