Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson does not need extra attention. Serious football fans already recognize him as one of the best players in the NFL.
Thus, when Robinson thanked Jesus following his team’s dominant 45-24 win over the rival New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football, the star running back invited at least the possibility of a negative reaction that most Christians undoubtedly recognize, even if we cannot always adequately describe or account for it.
In short, the mere mention of Christ’s name often calls forth quiet-yet-seething scorn from our poor, deluded atheist neighbors.
Moreover, only the name of Jesus seems to have this effect. It is worth thinking about why this is the case, as well as why Robinson’s simple act of gratitude strikes us as bold.
“First off, I gotta give honor to God,” a smiling Robinson told ESPN sideline reporter Laura Rutledge after the game. “Without Him, I wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be here. So I gotta give thanks to Him in just all He’s blessed me to do on this field for this team. And I just gotta give thanks to Jesus.”
“First off, I wanna give honor to God. Without him, I wouldn’t be here… I gotta give thanks to Him in all He’s blessed me to do… I just gotta give thanks to Jesus.”
– Atlanta Falcons RB Bijan Robinson after their 45-24 win over New Orleans Saints https://t.co/YnzjyxH7Rz— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) October 6, 2026
This was not the first time Robinson has taken a stand for his Savior on Monday Night Football. In 2025, the Falcons defeated both the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams on ESPN’s MNF. After each game, Robinson praised Jesus.
“I want to give all honor to Jesus and God … So everybody can see Him through us and Him through me.” ✝️
Bijan Robinson balled out on Monday Night Football — and gave all the glory to the Lord.
I love seeing athletes use their platforms to glorify Christ! https://t.co/8U95PNXJOt
— Frank D. Murphy (@TheFrankMurphy) October 20, 2025
“I gotta give honor to God. Jesus is with us… He allowed us to get this win, so I gotta give all the glory to Him. It gives me so much peace knowing God is in control of this team… He’s what drives me.”
– Atlanta Falcons RB Bijan Robinson after their win vs LA Rams https://t.co/FSeuOqstWw— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) December 30, 2025
On Monday night in New Orleans, Robinson exhibited his God-given talents by rushing for 145 yards and two touchdowns. His 59-yard sprint to the end zone on the game’s third play from scrimmage set the tone for the evening. The Falcons steamrolled the Saints en route to a 24-7 halftime lead and then cruised to a convincing victory.
(Meanwhile, Robinson’s teammate and fellow running back Brian Robinson Jr. — no relation — scored three touchdowns of his own.)
Monday’s performance gave the star running back 494 rushing yards after four games, good for second in the NFL.
That’s about what everyone expected. In fact, coming into the season, NFL insiders identified Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs of the Detroit Lions as the league’s two best running backs.
Do you support athletes publicly thanking God for their accomplishments?
Absolutely, it’s inspiring
67% (2 votes)
Yes, but it depends on the context
0% (0 votes)
Not really, it should be personal
0% (0 votes)
No, it detracts from sports
33% (1 vote)
In other words, that humble expression of thanks to Jesus came from a supreme talent and genuine NFL superstar.
And that made Robinson’s repeated expressions of Christian piety all the more bold. After all, had he stayed quiet, he would have maximized his chances to enjoy the world’s rewards. Christians and non-Christians alike, for instance, would have bought his jersey with equal measures of enthusiasm. He could have continued to enjoy the sort of earthly glory the secular world applauds.
Likewise, by staying silent, Robinson would have immunized himself against oscillating political fortunes. President Donald Trump’s 2024 election may have signaled the arrival of a friendlier era for people of faith, but it was not long ago that bold Christian athletes such as NBA forward Jonathan Isaac endured hostile scrutiny from the sports media for refusing to kneel during the Black Lives Matter madness of 2020.
In 2026, the atheist- and Marxist-inspired wokeness at the core of BLM has lost its grip on the culture. Still, it lingers in the shadows, awaiting an auspicious moment to reassert its fundamentally anti-Christian agenda.
Robinson could have avoided all that. Instead, he has publicly chosen light over darkness.
Of course, Robinson’s bold humility also calls to mind the unfortunate and singular effect Jesus’ name has on atheists.
Rather than denouncing our unbelieving neighbors, Christians ought to meet atheists on the very grounds of their disbelief.
These, it seems to me, can be reduced to two categories: evidence and feeling.
First, atheists seem to believe — they do not say why — that God, if He existed, would have made His presence obvious. Our superstitious ancestors, they say, imagined that they saw God everywhere. But modern science has delivered natural explanations for phenomena once attributed to the Almighty.
Alas, our atheistic neighbors have not thought through the logic of their position. Without God, we find our only possible explanation for the universe’s existence in happenstance. Accident or design: these constitute our only two options.
If we explain the universe as a great cosmic accident involving matter, energy, and the particles that formed them, as our materialist-atheist friends insist, then we create the ultimate paradox, for we have followed the physical evidence to the one place logic tells us it cannot lead. After all, if purposeless atomic and subatomic particles alone explain the universe, and human beings are part of the universe, then purposeless atomic and subatomic particles also explain us and our thoughts, for our thoughts are also part of the universe. That would render all thoughts random and meaningless, including the thought that all thoughts are random and meaningless.
In other words, atheists cannot even state their disbelief without logical absurdity. That is powerful evidence against atheism.
Second, the existence of God, and Jesus’ divinity in particular, do not square with how atheists feel.
Even if we could get atheists to acknowledge the unassailable logic that points to a Creator, they could (and would) still deny the Christian God on grounds that no good God, in their judgment, would have created a world like this.
“‘Thank you God for helping us win a football game!’ I wish God would spend less time helping football players win games and more time saving kids from dying from cancer, war, starvation etc.,” one person wrote on the social media platform X in response to Robinson’s praise of Jesus.
@JonnyRoot_ “Thank you God for helping us win a football game!”
I wish God would spend less time helping football players win games and more time saving kids from dying from cancer, war, starvation etc.— Charlie🧔🪐 (@kingofdubs) October 6, 2026
This is an important objection, for it reminds us that many atheists, despite their outward rage, are not darkness-worshiping monsters. In fact, they cherish goodness and justice. They object to the idea of a good God because of the ghastly injustices they find in the world. This often leads to anger and nihilism.
“Surely oppression drives the wise into madness.” (Ecclesiastes 7:7)
Again, however, if they could let go of the bitter feelings, logic would point them away from atheism. They say, for instance, that a good God would never have created a world like this. By their own reckoning, however, goodness itself has no meaning. After all, purposeless particles cannot produce good or evil, justice or injustice. Matter and energy, in and of themselves, have no moral qualities.
This is the second logical conundrum from which atheists cannot escape.
Now, imagine the reaction when atheists hear that God, whose existence they erroneously think the evidence disproves, once took human form in order to sacrifice Himself as part of history’s greatest act of love, which they confusingly deny in the world around them while simultaneously touting in themselves. Nothing in their confused and logically impossible worldview can accommodate Jesus.
In short, Robinson’s joyful public acknowledgement of his Savior — an acknowledgement that the secular world treats as personal — was both bold and weighty, for it forced every listener, consciously or otherwise, into the sometimes uncomfortable realm where the most important facts and questions of existence confront us.
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