- April 19, 2024
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Ricardo Allen endured the better part of three days, four rounds, and 146 picks before another number — 404 — lit up his iPhone and changed his life forever.
“I was just sitting there, and I got a call from a Georgia (area code),” said Allen — a former standout defensive back at Mainland High School and Purdue University.
On the other end of the line was Atlanta Falcons General Manager Thomas Dimitroff. He asked Allen how he felt, if he was healthy. The exchange was brief and concluded exactly how Allen had hoped it would.
“They said, 'We’re going to turn your card in, and you’re going to be an Atlanta Falcon,’” he recalled.
Back home in Daytona Beach, where Allen had gathered Saturday to watch the draft with his family and his girlfriend, Grace, the celebration ensued.
“They were jumping around, laughing; they were real happy,” Allen said.
Allen’s fifth-round selection marked the culmination of months of evaluations, scouting combines, workouts, and waiting. Did he mention waiting?
“It’s kind of like death row, sorry to say,” Allen said. “I’ve never been on death row, but I think that’s kind of what it feels like, because you’re at a point in your life where you don’t really know what’s going to go down, you don’t have any control in your hands. It’s just up in the air.”
I work out
P.J. Smith awoke to the sound of knocking on his bedroom window. It was the summer of 2008, and Ricardo Allen was ready to get moving.
“‘Are you ready to workout?’” Smith remembers repeating, equal parts groggy and incredulous. ‘It’s 10 a.m.!’ I jumped out of bed. I couldn’t say no, because he was so determined.”
So the pair set about their routine, which consisted of jumping rope and running drills at nearby Derbershire Park. By Allen’s senior season, that regimen helped to mold him into a first-team, all-state selection in 6A.
Smith, a former running back at Bethune-Cookman University, began working with Allen when he was a freshman at Mainland. They started with basic speed and agility drills. As the football workouts evolved in complexity, so did the pair’s bond.
“I started as a personal trainer, but I ended up with a little brother,” Smith says.
Ironically, Allen credits his career path to an accident that derailed the pigskin hopes of his older brother, Adrian. According to a November story published in the Indianapolis Star, Ricardo, then a seventh-grader, accidentally started a grease fire while cooking up “hamburgers in a skillet.” Adrian tried to extinguish the blaze but suffered injuries that ultimately ended his career as a running back at Mainland.
“It was never my dream,” Ricardo Allen says. “It was always his. And I took it away from him. He ended up going down the wrong path, and I had to step up to the plate.”
Nearly a decade after the accident, he’s rounding third — gunning hard for a chance to cash in on that dream.
If I had a nickel(back)
In the days and weeks leading up to the draft, University of Toledo defensive coordinator Jon Heacock fielded inquiry after inquiry from NFL coaches regarding Allen. And they all asked the same thing.
“Everybody felt that his spot was going to be nickelback,” said Heacock, who served as Purdue’s defensive backs coach during Allen’s senior season. "That was every coach's question."
Atlanta was one of the interested parties — the first to be exact. The Dirty Birds came on hot and heavy, but then played hard-to-get.
“Right after I got done with the combine, I was going home for spring break,” Allen said. “Their DB coach came down and worked me out. It was a real good visit.”
Maybe, it was so good that Atlanta went to extremes to ensure Allen didn’t show up as a blip on other teams’ radars.
“After that, they left me alone,” he said. “I knew they had interest, but they just left it, left it dry. They didn’t want to get their name out there, to show other people that they were going to try to get me. They just kept it on the down low.”
Allen snagged 13 career interceptions at Purdue and holds the Boilermakers’ all-time record for interceptions returned for a touchdown with four. He garnered All-Big Ten honors the past three seasons.
But pundits and “draft experts” cited Allen’s 5-foot-9, 187-pound frame as a reason why he wouldn’t merit more than a third-day pick.
“Undersized with skinny, wiry build and limbs...limited strength potential and will be out-muscled by WRs...forced to wrestle ballcarriers to the ground and lacks the natural power to consistently finish by himself,” CBSsports.com’s Dane Brugler wrote.
Allen never read reports on him; he knew NFL franchises do their own legwork when scouting prospects.
“Personally, I really didn’t care what they thought about me, because they’re not the ones who’ll be drafting me,” he said. “If you have no say-so, and you’re not in the draft room, then it didn’t matter. It’s your word over, really, mine.”
Atlanta has a plan for Allen, and that’ll work to his benefit as he looks to crack the roster, Heacock said.
“He’s getting taken at a spot where they know exactly what they want to do with him, and I think that’s a huge advantage,” Heacock said. “They know what his upside is at that position, maybe what his downside is, and what he can do. That’s a pretty good world to live in.”
From Daytona to West Lafayette and now to the ATL, Allen’s world continues to expand. He left for Atlanta on Sunday. The Falcons will hold a rookie minicamp May 16 to 18.
“It feels great to be a draft pick just in general,” Allen said. “To go to the Atlanta Falcons was a plus — times two. That was one of my top picks as a team, and I’m just ready to go down there and play ball. … I have to be the anchor for my family.”
