Barret Robbins Dies At Age 52, Former Raiders Star Was Named All-Pro in 2002

Raiders legend and Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Tim Brown announced Friday on social media that his former Raiders teammate, center Barret Robbins, died at the age of 52.

In a post on X, Brown wrote that Robbins' wife, Marissa Robbins, informed him that Barret "passed peacefully in his sleep" overnight:

Robbins played his entire nine-year NFL career with the then-Oakland Raiders from 1995 to 2003, earning Pro Bowl and First Team All-Pro honors in 2002.

While Robbins started 105 of the 121 games he appeared in for the Raiders, he is probably best known for a game in which he didn't play.

The 1995 second-round pick out of TCU was slated to start for the Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the conclusion of the 2002 season, but Robbins went missing the day before the game.

Although Robbins resurfaced in time for the game, the Raiders decided not to play him, and they went on to lose 48-21.

Shortly after the incident, Robbins' agent announced that the star offensive lineman had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and he subsequently spent time in a hospital.

Robbins later recounted the circumstances surrounding his brief disappearance in an interview with ESPN's Andrea Kremer. Robbins said he ended up in Tijuana, Mexico, which is about a 30-minute drive from where Super Bowl XXXVII was held in San Diego, California.

While Robbins noted that he wasn't sure why he went to Tijuana, he recalled feeling as though the Raiders had already played in and won the Super Bowl.

"The hardest part to me is that the feeling I had was that the game was over and we had won and that was the way I felt," Robbins said. "That's the way my brain was functioning to take the stress off or to alleviate whatever it was, and I don't know why, but that's what was going on in my brain and that's ... it's crazy to me."

Robbins returned to play in and start nine games for the Raiders in 2003, but he was released by the team in 2004 after testing positive for steroids.

After his playing days were over, Robbins had several run-ins with the law, including getting sentenced to five years in prison in 2011 on drug charges while on probation.

Robbins was released from prison in 2012 after serving about 1.5 years of his five-year sentence.