The tackle that's never lived up to it joins the line that's never lived up to it

Cam Robinson, the Texans, join forces

Cam Robinson, entering his age-30 season, is now the Texans stopgap left tackle. They signed him to a one-year contract on Wednesday with a “minimum” of $12.5 million in salary.

Robinson has had a career that is hard to bucket. He’s not a bust, and he’s not a star. He’s not quite been a stopgap, but he’s also never been good enough to be a fixture. The Jaguars were happy to part with him at the trade deadline, taking just a conditional fourth-or fifth-round pick. At the same time, he was enough of an upgrade for the Vikings on their non-Christian Darrisaw options for them to consider the move worthwhile.

Robinson has played eight NFL seasons and, per Pro Football Focus, not one of them has warranted a grade below 52.4 or above 67.4. He is remarkable only in the sense of how unremarkable he is, the sort of player who blends into the background of the NFL landscape. He spent most of his career on a Jaguars team that went nowhere — his rookie season was with the 2017 AFC Title Run team, and nobody had real expectations for him then. He managed to avoid any real culpability for the Vikings collapse because everyone had been waiting for Sam Darnold to fall apart for months.

And now he’s suddenly in the brightest spotlight you can possibly be on. The Texans have a highly-regarded young quarterback, have ascended to the bottom of the league’s marquee teams, and Robinson’s job is to make sure C.J. Stroud doesn’t get killed. Or he’s going to hear about it, because Laremy Tunsil wouldn’t have let that happen. (Editor’s note: He actually might have, but nobody cares about the reality of Tunsil, only the idea.)