Amik Robertson was a fourth-round pick in 2020 and showed flashes in his four years with the Raiders before signing a two-year, $9.5 million deal with the Lions after the 2023 season.
Back in 2023, Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter called Robertson one of two players “loved by everybody” in the Raiders locker room, but like many before and after him, Robertson got mixed up in multiple regime changes and didn’t last with the team beyond his rookie contract.
Robertson talked this week about some of the challenges he faced in Las Vegas and said the first thing he had to cut out as a member of the Raiders was excessive partying.
“The partying, I’m going to be honest, I was doing that my first two years. I was doing that a lot. But it’s the reason why I was doing that, too. I don’t want to go in too deep. Vegas was tough,” Robertson said on the St. Brown Podcast.
Under Jon Gruden, Robertson said he quickly fell behind when the coaching staff asked him to play a position he had never played before.
“I come in, I get drafted [and] everybody loves me. Then they move me to Nickel. Never played that in my life. That s— was like Chinese,” Robertson said. “They just threw me in the water to play Nickel, and I didn’t even understand Nickel. I didn’t perform. Now everybody like, they kind of turning they back on me. And it’s like, then we didn’t have OTAs. We didn’t have because of COVID. We didn’t have none of that, so I had to learn from the iPad.”
“It’s different when you’re looking rather than really doing it. And when I got out there, them bullets was flying. I just couldn’t handle it, and two years straight I was in a bad place and that’s what forced me to go out a lot. When you don’t feel accepted, when you just got high school, middle school, and college, and everybody loved you. But then, when you get to the league and they start to love you a little bit, but then people start turning they backs on you. It’s like going to the clubs, around all these people, I feel love. So that’s why I was just going out every night. But eventually, I ended up finding myself again and realized, ‘No, that’s not me.’ I had to get back to my roots.”
Robertson didn’t say who he thought “turned their backs” on him in Las Vegas, nor did he get any deeper about why it was “tough” in Las Vegas.
Robertson has found success in Detroit, though, and is averaging 64 snaps per game in the last three weeks. He had his first interception of the season in week 5 and is enjoying a solid start to the year as he prepares to enter free agency for the second time in his career.
Despite being considered undersized by many (he measured under 5’9 at the NFL Combine), Robertson has already chiseled out six NFL seasons and at just 27 years old, probably has a few more good years remaining.
x: @raidersbeat
Anyone with a clue knew before the Raiders moved to Vegas the distractions of all sorts were going to be difficult to manage. It’s pretty obvious that the Raiders do not have a team in place to monitor players from themselves and outside sources trying to scam and scheme them. There’s no question in my mind that there’s a similar gambling network that was exposed in the NBA. And I’m sure it started in Vegas. The best scammers are where all the money is. And there’s plenty of women that are really good at it too.
Not to mention that the team lacks a true home field advantage with opposing team fans outnumbering actual Raider fans. And who knows when that will change, if ever!? But, at least the NFL is raking in the dough with a team in Vegas.
Exactly
And expanding to a worldwide enterprise at the fans here’s expense.