Why the Falcons made Bijan Robinson the richest RB in NFL history

This is important when your presumptive WR2 is either Jahan Dotson or Olamide Zaccheaus. Important enough for the Atlanta Falcons to dedicate more money to Robinson than any NFL running back has ever seen.

Tucson native and Salpointe Catholic grad Robinson can become the first tailback with a $25 million annual salary after signing an extension to stay in Atlanta. His three-year deal has a base value of $22.25 million per year, with incentives capable of hitting that lofty goal. Fifty-one million of his contract is guaranteed.

It marks the continuation of a strategy the Falcons executed at the NFL Draft earlier this decade. Robinson, Kyle Pitts and Drake London were all top 10 draft picks designed to create a plug-and-play offense in which any quarterback can thrive. That hasn't yet happened — Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr. were derailed by injury, most recently — but general manager Ian Cunningham is sticking with the plan he inherited from Terry Fontenot.

He's keeping good players at market value prices, to the point where his top three offensive stars could wind up making $78 million in average salary between them. That's a bet that locks up about a quarter of the team's salary cap spending before even getting to that QB.

Why did the Falcons make Robinson the league's highest-paid running back?

Short answer: because they had to.

This is not a shaky bet on an injury prone young back who's shown flashes of star power. Robinson is the bonafide star Atlanta expected after selecting him eighth overall in 2023. His rushing yardage and yards per carry have increased each season in the league — a stretch where he's gone from receiving rookie of the year votes, to the Pro Bowl, to first-team All-Pro honors.

His receiving chops spiked in 2025, notching 79 catches for 820 yards (nearly doubling his totals from 2023 and 2024 combined). In a quarterback platoon of Cousins and Penix, he was the easy button. He was pressed often.

His quarterbacks for 2026 are an injured Penix and a diminished Tua Tagovailoa. They'll be throwing to London, Pitts and an ooze of role players behind them. That includes Dotson, Zaccheaus, rookie third round pick Zach Branch and Chris Blair. The Falcons badly need playmakers. They have access to the guy who is arguably better at generating yards from nothing than anyone else in the league. Not signing him may have been more costly than breaking the bank to keep him around.

Importantly, Atlanta can afford this — in large part because its quarterbacks are Penix and Tagovailoa, who'll account for less than $7.5 million against this year's salary cap. That's about 2.6 games worth of Matthew Stafford's cap hit in 2026. With an estimated $102 million to spend next season before the Robinson extension, the Falcons were slated to have the second-most salary cap space in the league, per Over the Cap.

Atlanta has money and is probably too good to sink to the bottom of the standings and the top of the 2027 NFL Draft, which means limited avenues to fix that quarterback problem. This means targeting a veteran, either in free agency (Baker Mayfield, perhaps?) or trade. Getting to link up with Robinson and London is a selling point. So is showcasing your commitment to an explosive offense by throwing gobs of money at it.

And look, I've wasted all this type and barely touched on how damn fun Robinson is to watch. So let's revel in that for a moment.

Robinson had a 60.2% success rate in 2024, effectively setting his quarterbacks up with third-and-manageable situations on a regular basis with early down runs despite opponents knowing they were coming. His growth as a target paints him as a potential 1,000-yard threat both on the ground and through the air. He is a key that unlocks new chapters of the playbook all on his own.

That's worth up to $25 million per year, especially when your team is staring down one of the league's more depressing quarterback battles.