Barret Robbins

Barret Glenn Robbins (August 26, 1973 – March 26, 2026) was an American professional football player who was a center for nine seasons with the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League (NFL). After playing college football for the TCU Horned Frogs, he was taken by the Raiders in the second round of the 1995 NFL draft. He was elected to the Pro Bowl in 2002.

College career Robbins attended Texas Christian University, where he played for the Horned Frogs. As a senior in 1994, he was named first-team All-Southwest Conference. TCU played in the 1994 Independence Bowl, their first postseason game in a decade. While in college, Robbins was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and he was hospitalized during a psychotic episode.

Professional career

Robbins was selected by the Los Angeles Raiders in the second round of the 1995 NFL draft, with the 49th overall pick.

In 1996, Mike White's last year as head coach, the second-year Robbins replaced Dan Turk in the lineup, becoming only the fifth starting center in Raider history, after Turk, Don Mosebar, Dave Dalby, and Jim Otto. The first sign of his mental health problems turned up during the season when he was found disoriented and wandering around the team hotel in Denver shortly before a game with the Denver Broncos. Robbins missed that game and was hospitalized.

During the 2000 NFL season with Jon Gruden as head coach and Rich Gannon at quarterback, Oakland scored 479 points (29.9 points/game), 3rd of 31 teams in the NFL, thanks to a strong offensive line which included Robbins playing between Steve Wisniewski at left guard and Mo Collins at right guard in all 16 games (also both playoff games), finishing with a won-lost record of 12–4 and an AFC West title. In the divisional round of the 2000–01 NFL playoffs, Oakland shut out the Miami Dolphins 27–0, gaining 140 yards on the ground. An early sign of Robbins' future trouble was displayed when he went missing a week before the AFC championship game, though in this case he did show up 24 hours before the game started and played in the Raiders 16–3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. According to one of his teammates, Robbins didn't even recognize Callahan. Despite this, Al Davis still wanted Robbins in the game, and development coach Willie Brown had Robbins running sprints in the parking lot on the morning of the game to see if he could still play.

Callahan had initially intended to let Robbins play, but not start. However, he ultimately decided to suspend Robbins for the game after concluding that he was not fit to take the field at all. He initially wanted to fly Robbins back to Oakland, but was unable to get him a plane ticket because he was missing his wallet and identification. With Adam Treu as the starting center, the Raiders were blown out in an ugly loss in the Super Bowl to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 48–21.

Robbins regained his starting job the next year in the 2003 NFL season with the same linemates, a disastrous 4–12 for the team. However, his name and those of several of his teammates were found on the list of clients of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative that had given performance-enhancing drugs to Marion Jones and others. The Raiders released him in the summer of 2004 after he tested positive for "the clear," a steroid known to have come from the BALCO lab.

In a 2009 interview with HBO's Real Sports, Robbins told Andrea Kremer that before being diagnosed as bipolar, he had dealt with his mood swings by taking alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and steroids. He also said that he had been in a manic mood for both Raider playoff games prior to the Super Bowl. His ex-wife, Marisa, also interviewed for the story, said that before the diagnosis there were days where he had breakfast and went right back to bed.

In early 2010, a police officer pulled him over near Dallas and found crack cocaine in his car. On March 25, 2011, Robbins was sentenced to five years in a Florida prison for a drug-related probation violation and was released on September 25, 2012.

In August 2016, Robbins was alleged to have punched a mother and her daughter in Boca Raton, Florida, resulting in his arrest and two subsequent charges of felony battery before being sent to a mental health facility.

In November 2020, Robbins was accused of leaving a restaurant in Delray Beach, Florida, without paying for his meal. A restaurant employee followed Robbins as he fled the restaurant on foot. During the altercation, Robbins allegedly threw a rock at the restaurant employee. Delray Beach Police were called and Robbins was taken into custody.

Death Robbins died on March 26, 2026, at the age of 52.