A’Shawn Robinson aiming for Week 10 return

The clearest picture on the A’Shawn Robinson situation yet was posted by SI’s Albert Breer on Thursday and it sounds as though the LA Rams are hopeful that they can get Robinson onto the field after their Week 9 bye. Though Robinson’s presence on the injury report to start camp was a surprise, the latest update suggesting that he could return for the final eight games feels like a relief based on how little we’ve heard of his status.

According to Breer, Robinson nearly opted out for the season but his agent Sean Kiernan worked a deal with the Rams front office to keep the door open for him to return in 2020 while pushing his contract back and now having him under contract through 2022 with minimal extra cost. Breer’s report has the full breakdown of how they got here but here is where they got:

Ultimately, the Rams are paying an extra $150,000 to give Robinson a chance to play, and they get the contract they agreed to in March over the two years to follow this one. Robinson, in turn, gets the extra money and a shot to play this year (with a bump in pay if he can), but knows he’s protected beyond this year if things don’t work out between now and the end of the season—he’d still, obviously, need medical clearance to play.

It’s hard to find criticism of Les Snead and the Rams organization on this deal other than the fact that it was Robinson’s agent who pitched it. The team was set to lose Robinson for the entire season and though that would have also tolled his contract and pushed his deal out to 2022, now LA can keep him in their plans for the second half of the year.

The bad news is that Robinson is dealing with a health issue and it’s important for him to get that taken care of first, but if he and the team have this amount of optimism that he can return within a few months then hopefully that’s what he will do and then the Rams will have him, Aaron Donald and Michael Brockers signed through 2022.