Sometimes the news is a little too close to home.
Bryan Robinson, nicknamed “B-Rob” by teammates and friends, entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent and won a career and a spot in Bears mythology. The defensive lineman, 41, was discovered dead in a Milwaukee motel room late Saturday night.
The Toledo, Ohio, native was pronounced dead at the Midpoint Motel at 10:17 p.m. As of Monday morning, autopsy and toxicology reports from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s office were still awaited.
Robinson, who played for the Bears from 1998 to 2003, was one of those players that made this reporter’s job enjoyable over the years, even when he moved on to play for Miami, Cincinnati, and, finally, the Arizona Cardinals. Breakfast with B-Rob at the Golden Torch Restaurant in Waukegan was a tradition where the conversations were about much more than football, and seeing him later in the season when the Bears played the Bengals and Cardinals meant something because you knew what he’d overcome to achieve what he did, playing in a Super Bowl with the Cardinals.
He was an undrafted free agent with the St. Louis Rams who made a name for himself – literally – when, as a rookie in 1997, he punched Rams tackle Fred Miller in the jaw during a training camp brawl, which Robinson claimed was the result of a veteran mistreating rookies, which he vowed he would never do, and didn’t. The Rams released him at the end of training camp the following year, and the Bears signed him just before the 1998 season. He earned a starting spot late in the season.
In the 1999 “Walter Payton Game,” Robinson elevated to block a chip-shot field goal attempt by Ryan Longwell, sealing a 14-13 win over the Green Bay Packers in Lambeau Field on the weekend following Payton’s death. Robinson, who weighs 305 pounds, didn’t pretend to have much vertical, later saying, “I think Walter Payton actually picked me up a little bit and boosted me up in the air because I can’t jump that high.” Walter was heavily involved. I’m sure he did.”
Under coach Greg Blache, Robinson became a vital member of the Bears’ mammoth defensive front, partnering with Philip Daniels, Keith Traylor, and Ted Washington to anchor a front that led the Bears to the 2001 playoffs. Robinson did not fit the new, one-gap defensive strategy when Lovie Smith came in 2004, and he was removed in the final roster cuts, but not before serving as a mentor to then-rookies Tommie Harris and Tank Johnson.
The undrafted defensive lineman fashioned out a 14-year career for himself, culminating with 24 sacks, 16.5 of which came with the Bears, who gave him the transition tag in 2001 and eventually signed him to a $20-million contract.
Robinson was a one-of-a-kind character, one of the truly tough guys in a sport rife with them. One preseason day at Halas Hall, a hush fell over the Bears practice field as he and center Olin Kreutz emerged off a pass-rush exercise ready to throw down. They exchanged a look, then burst out laughing, as the rest of the audience exhaled.Linebacker Brian Urlacher claimed he liked the Blache defensive scheme because Daniels, Traylor, Washington, and Rovinson never let anyone get close to him.
On Day 1 of the 1999 training camp, with the assembled media eager to interview him as the new defensive end starter outside the dining hall at UW-Platteville, Robinson came out the door and let loose with a verbal volley, declaring that he wasn’t talking to anyone who only wanted to talk to him now that he was a starter and hadn’t had time for him when he was a roster nobody. (Bears Public Relations calmed the waters. Eventually.)
