Bijan Robinson names NFL legend he patterned his game after

Bijan Robinson finished Week 1 as the Atlanta Falcons ' leading receiver, and Cooper Rush did not have to look very far when he needed an easy answer against the Pittsburgh Steelers .

Robinson was targeted 10 times in Atlanta 's 20-13 loss, catching eight passes for 90 yards and a touchdown. He had seven catches for 66 yards by halftime, including a 23-yard touchdown on a screen, while the rest of the Falcons' passing game struggled to find much rhythm.

He still handled his usual work on the ground, carrying 21 times for 83 yards. That left Robinson with 173 of Atlanta's 263 yards from scrimmage, or 65.8% of the offense's total. According to NFL, that was the largest share by any player in a season opener since Eric Dickerson accounted for 66.6% of the Rams' scrimmage yards in 1986.

Robinson also finished the opening week with more receiving yards than any running back in the league. Tampa Bay's Bucky Irving was next with 48.

Bijan Robinson has been catching the football for a long time

Atlanta using Robinson this way did not just start on Sunday.

He caught 79 passes for 820 yards and four touchdowns last season while also rushing for 1,478 yards. No player in NFL history had previously finished a season with at least 1,400 rushing yards and 810 receiving yards.

Robinson told DJ Siddiqi in an exclusive interview with Covers that catching the football has never felt foreign to him.

"Obviously running the football is the main priority, but then being an effective player in the pass game too. I've always conquered football my whole life. I played 7-on-7 flag my whole life. That's just something that God gifted me to do, and route-running and catching footballs, it's a natural thing that I love to do.

"They wanted to exploit it more here when I got to the NFL. That's what I've been doing, man. It's something that I appreciate, because you become a threat all over the field and become a guy that you have to watch for no matter where I line up and have an impact in that way. I want to continue to keep helping my team through that, and just continue to get better."

When Robinson was asked which back he patterned his game after, he went straight to Marshall Faulk.

"I looked up to Marshall Faulk," Robinson said. "Obviously, he's the prototype who I look up to in running style and catching the football."

Faulk once caught 87 passes for 1,048 yards in 1999 and finished his Hall of Fame career with 767 receptions for 6,875 yards. Robinson also named Barry Sanders, LaDainian Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson among the backs he watched and borrowed from.

Kevin Stefanski said after the Pittsburgh game that Atlanta will continue leaning on Robinson. The Falcons get Carolina at home Sunday, and after 29 touches in the opener, that workload could again include plenty of routes along with the carries.