There’s no question that the NFL is full of tough players. After all, it’s a contact sport.
Literally every play in the NFL happens with the idea that one person will collide with another at the end. It attracts many people because it is a gladiator sport.
In the week leading up to Super Bowl LVIII, my colleague JP Acosta and I were lucky enough to talk toughness with two of the league’s toughest running backs, Antonio Gibson and Brian Robinson Jr. Thanks to our friends at Bounty, of course.
With billions of saucy chicken wings eaten during the Super Bowl alone, playoff season requires even more wings and dirty fingers. Bounty is the wingman everyone needs to keep things clean when rooting for their favorite team.
Bounty will be your wingman this Sunday at the Super Bowl. You can’t play soccer without wings, and you can’t have wings without bounties.
JP and I chatted with the Washington Commanders duo, munched on chicken wings, and cleaned up the mess using incredibly durable Bounty paper towels. In the process, each found out what was the toughest blow they had ever taken part in. their career.
Antonio Gibson said Leighton Vander Esch gave him the toughest hit ever
It was a little awkward interviewing two Washington players considering I’m covering the Dallas Cowboys here at SB Nation, but thankfully Antonio Gibson threw me a bone. (It wasn’t the bones of the wing I just ate).
When we asked the two people who wrote the most difficult hits ever, Gibson was quick to say it was Cowboys linebacker Leighton Vander Esch. He said LVE met him right at his A-Gap and knocked him into a place that felt like a whole other dimension.
That’s the style of play that Leighton offers, but also the type that Gibson invites. While Antonio plays with great speed, he is also the type of player who can absorb big hits and keep moving forward.
Meanwhile, Brian Robinson Jr. wants to be contacted. a lot.
— RJ Ochoa
Brian Robinson looks like a hammer, not a nail
When asked about the biggest hit he’s ever taken in the NFL, Brian Robinson’s answer was simple. “There was nothing.” As a contact initiator, he looks to cause pain to linebackers and has the body of work to prove it, rather than the other way around. Through his first two seasons in the NFL (including one shortened season), Robinson has racked up more than his 1,500 yards and has trailed many defenders.
In fact, Robinson said the only linebacker who responded to the same craving for contact was none other than San Francisco 49er Fred Warner, who met him in the gap and stopped him in his tracks. Robinson said his entire running style is built around contact and delivering it, and the fact that Warner met him in the gap spoke volumes to Robinson.
— JP Acosta
Thank you Antonio, Brian and Bounty.
There was no damage to the wing or running back when this photo was taken.
