Last offseason, former Alabama defensive lineman A’Shawn Robinson took more than five weeks to come in from free agency. This year, Robinson has a contract lined up, and he won’t be a free agent until 3 p.m. CDT Wednesday.

After playing for the New York Giants in 2023, Robinson is joining the Carolina Panthers for 2024, the Charlotte Observer and NFL Network reported on Tuesday, for a three-year, $22.5 million contract.

Last offseason, Robinson was coming off a torn meniscus that caused him to miss the final seven games of the 2022 campaign.

In the 2023 season, Robinson logged 515 defensive snaps in 17 games, with 13 starts, for the Giants. He recorded 62 tackles and six tackles for loss.

Robinson finished tied for ninth among the NFL’s defensive-interior linemen in tackles in 2023, with new teammate Derrick Brown, a former Auburn All-American, at the top of the list with 103. But Robinson is the only player in the top nine who had fewer than 750 defensive snaps.

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In Carolina, Robinson will reunite with Ejiro Evero, who was a defensive assistant when Robinson played for the Los Angeles Rams in 2021 and is now the defensive coordinator of the Panthers.

Robinson was a consensus All-American at Alabama and played on a CFP national-championship team in 2015, his final season with the Crimson Tide.

A second-round draft choice of the Lions in 2016, Robinson spent his first four NFL seasons with Detroit before signing a two-year, $17 million contract in March 2020 to join the Rams in free agency.

The coronavirus pandemic complicated his move west. A medical condition that Robinson described as “a respiratory situation (that) had happened in the past” steered him to reserve/non-football injury because of concerns about what might happened if he contracted COVID-19.

The reserve/NFI designation guaranteed Robinson would have to miss the first six games of the season. He didn’t get on the field until Game 9 on Nov. 15, 2020, and worked out a delay of one season on his two-year contract.

In 2021, Robinson played in every game for the Rams as he reached a career high of 67 tackles during the regular season. Robinson added 22 more tackles and a sack in four postseason games as Los Angeles won the NFL championship. The Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 in Super Bowl LVI, with Robinson contributing six tackles and one sack.

In 2022, Robinson had started Los Angeles’ first 10 games when his knee injury took him off the field.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.