Allen Robinson will see a familiar face in training camp when he lines up at wide receiver. Jalen Ramsey, his former teammate in Jacksonville, will likely be the guy matched up with him on the outside, pitting two of the best players at their respective positions against each other.
Robinson and Ramsey also battled the last three years when the Rams and Bears squared off in the regular season, so they’ve seen a lot of each other over the years. Now teammates, Robinson is looking forward to going up against Ramsey in practice this summer, knowing it will only help him prepare for the season.
“I’m looking forward to it, for sure. Always,” Robinson said in an interview with D’Marco Farr and Maurice Jones-Drew. “We had some great training camp battles over the years in Jacksonville, so being able to bring that element here, I think there’s nothing better than to be able to have those challenges in training camp before the season. When you’re going up against guys like Jalen and some of the guys we have on defense and our defensive structure, once you get to the season, playing against guys, you’ve seen a lot of these things before. You’ve seen hard press coverages on third down backside. You’ve seen all that camp. So once you get to see those things, you take them and kind of learn from them and as you get into the season, fine-tune some other things.”
In their Week 1 matchup last season, Robinson caught one pass for 8 yards when covered by Ramsey. He was only targeted twice, so he didn’t get many opportunities against Ramsey. In 2020, Robinson caught a 42-yard pass against Ramsey, his only target of that contest, which the Rams won 24-10. Their first battle as opponents came in 2019, but in that game, Ramsey blanked Robinson with zero catches on two targets.
They’re both confident players and will want to win their reps in camp, so it should be fun to watch them go up against each other day in and day out.
