Browns receiver Brian Robiskie doesn't like to look back to his unproductive rookie season other than to seek ways to improve his game. It's sounding as if he's off to a good start in his second year.
View full sizeBrowns receiver Brian Robiskie didn't make an impression as a rookie, but the coaches have taken notice of his improvement in the off-season.
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BEREA, Ohio — Without being asked, Browns coach Eric Mangini singled out Brian Robiskie on Thursday as having "an outstanding" off-season camp.
This might not be the career watershed Robiskie envisioned when he was drafted in the second round a year ago to play for the team he once served as a ball boy while his father coached receivers.
View full sizeRobiskie is upbeat about the upcoming season.But the unsolicited kudos beat most anything the coach had to say about Robiskie as a rookie. Comments like "he needs to find his role on special teams" and "he needs to have a better sense of how to run routes" were more the norm.
To his credit, Robiskie never publicly questioned why he was made inactive for four of the first 15 games of his first season. (He missed the last game with an ankle injury.)
After leaving Ohio State heralded as the most polished wide receiver in the 2009 draft, Robiskie concluded his rookie NFL season with seven receptions. Nobody saw that coming.
"Last year for me involved a lot of learning," Robiskie said Thursday after a 90-minute practice in sweltering conditions similar to training camp in August.
"But I think that was very beneficial to me to apply it to this year.
"I don't think there was a point for me where I was sitting and questioning myself for what I was doing. The biggest thing was, what can I do to get better? Regardless of what kind of season I had, I was going to take the same approach in the off-season."
There remains no consensus answer to the mystery of Robiskie's rookie year.
There were conspiracy theories -- that Mangini took offense to Robiskie cutting local promotional deals before he played a regular-season game; that Mangini suspected Robiskie or his father were sources for a story blasting Mangini for taking rookies on a 10-hour bus trip to work the coach's charity clinic in Hartford, Conn.; that Robiskie was purposely held out of playing to avoid hitting a contract incentive that would escalate his salary. When these theories were presented, one league source said simply, "Maybe he's just not good enough."
Mangini's contention all along has been that young players develop at different paces.
"There is no one formula for these guys," Mangini said Thursday. "You try a lot of different things to get them to contribute as quickly as possible. It sometimes hits at different spots.
"We've talked about the receiver [Mike Sims-Walker] when we played Jacksonville last year. The first two seasons he had 16 catches, and then 70-plus in his third year. So it started to hit. You don't know. I've seen it with a lot of players, pretty much every team I've been with. You try to get that magical combination of installs, meetings, the way to handle it."
Robiskie's attitude about his second season is upbeat. He doesn't dwell on the previous one.
"I don't know what it was. But for me, last year was last year," he said. "I'm excited about this year. I'm excited about the finish we had, about the things we were doing. And I'm excited about my opportunity to help us win games this season."
He said when he examined his first season, he decided he needed to "make everything better -- running routes, catching balls, run blocking. Everything receivers do. I think having a year under my belt really helps."
The Browns have completed six of their 16 formal off-season team practices, which includes a mandatory minicamp June 10-12. Robiskie said he started working out in informal throwing sessions with receivers Mohamed Massaquoi and Chansi Stuckey as soon as new quarterbacks Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace joined the team in March.
He agrees with comments Massaquoi previously made, that having an established veteran quarterback like Delhomme as the starter will help the receivers immensely.
"Obviously, we're trying to develop a rapport with him," Robiskie said. "I think between watching film with him and coming out to practice, and listening to our coaches, we're trying to build a chemistry. I think that's definitely one of the most important things with a quarterback and the receivers, the chemistry between them."
Something must be clicking because Mangini, not one to heap praise on young players, said, "He's running good routes and has made some big plays pretty much every day."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: tgrossi@plaind.com, 216-999-4670
| Cleveland Browns Brian Robiskie having an outstanding camp |