rojo wrote:
To everyone enthralled by Allen's TD, you might not want to read this from Reuben Frank:
10. You knew I wasn’t going to finish this without giving Allen some props for his first catch in an organized football game in six years. It’s been a rough few weeks for Allen, who rarely gets reps in practice and just hasn’t had a chance to show his world-class speed. Playing pro football after not playing any football since 2016 is incredibly challenging, but Allen has been quietly putting in the work, getting acclimated to running in pads again, learning the offense, and we finally got a glimpse of what he’s capable of when he ran away from one-time Eagle cornerback Lavert Hill and reeled in a 55-yard touchdown bomb from Sinnett for his first catch since Sept. 10, 2016, when he had four catches for 141 yards for Oregon against Virginia in Eugene. Allen isn’t making the 53, but when you see a play like that you understand why the Eagles were willing to invest the time in an Olympic hurdler who’s been away from the game for six years and why they’d like to keep him around on the practice squad. It’s not easy finding fast guys who can catch a football, and Allen showed Sunday he’s capable of both. Also heck of a throw also by Sinnett, who hasn’t made many of them.
Let's hope Allen gets more opportunities in the final few practices as it was a big adjustment which Allen compared to being stunned by a grenade.
"To be honest, the first couple weeks ... you watch one of those military movies, the grenade goes off and they're like, [stunned]. Their head's ringing," Allen told reporters on Sunday of his adjustment back to football. "And that's how I felt in the huddle the first couple weeks, just trying to listen to the call, understand my assignment, figure out what I'm doing, and then make a play on the field, be a football player."
This kinda reminded me of the time Bill Walsh wanted to keep Renaldo Nehemiah in the '80s on the 49ers teams as a WR opposite Clark/Solomon (this is before Rice was drafted in '85). Nehemiah, I believe, was an Olympic sprinter.
You can't teach speed!