Allen: tweets & other bits on pick 111

Vincent Bonsignore@DailyNewsVinny
I’m not saying the #Rams lit candles last year praying the O-line stayed healthy, but let’s just say everyone understood the major break they caught in avoiding injuries on the O-Line as depth was an issue. They are addressing that so far in the draft with an OT and now C.

Albert Breer@AlbertBreer
Rams coach Sean McVay’s system values centers big-time, and he got himself a good one in Michigan State’s Brian Allen.

Joe Curley@vcsjoecurley
Brian Allen’s older brother Jack is a center with the Saints. Although he went undrafted. Brian said he didn’t want to get his hopes up, but thought the Rams may be his destination today

As his older brother Jack hugged him, Brian just told reporters: “I was there in 2015 on his day. i kind of had that situation, that scenario going in my mind… Honesty, I was telling me agent, I think the Rams are going to take me.”

Allen said being drafted by the Rams has him “overjoyed with all the emotions.” “I’m just really excited to have the opportunity.”

Remember that storyline with Noteboom and Whitworth? Get ready for it again with Allen and John Sullivan. Allen said, growing up in the Midwest, Sullivan “is someone I’ve always looked up to.” Says he hopes he doesn’t “annoy him too much” as he learns to be an NFL center.

Although he was listed as a center, Allen said he feels comfortable playing all three interior line positions. He made 17 starts at center, 16 at left guard and five at right guard for Michigan State.

Allen described himself as a “tough, hard-nosed, hard-working guy who’s going to do his job and do what’s expected of him.” He made 38 starts at Michigan State, including his final 28 games.

IMO this is good.

Blythe is just not starter material. This guy IS, looks like.

Deadpool sez:

Brian Allen – OC – Michigan State – 6′-1″ 298 lbs. – A strong, tough center that is sluggish in his movement. A workhorse.

He was my 218th ranked prospect, but my 2nd highest rated pure OC behind Quessenberry from UCLA. He has short arms and isn’t very smooth in his movement but he has a few intangibles I really look for in a OL. He was a very good wrestler, that means he knows how to use his hands, he knows how to manipulate weight and is tougher then your average bear. He was also a captain, so a leader and he comes from a deep football family.

And as I have said in the past, my blind spot is OC. I just don’t nail those guys too often.

Not a bad pick if you are desperate for an OC this year. Thats why I had Sean Welsh or Tony Adams to the Rams in the 6th. But they are guards first, projecting to C, Allen is a OC.

ESPN had him ranked 197, NFL.com had him as a 7th rounder.

Myles Simmons@MylesASimmons
Snead calls C Brian Allen a “really good technician” and “very smart.” Adds he’s a “great guy, but mean on the field.”

Brian Allen might be the centerpiece of Rams’ draft

link: https://www.ocregister.com/2018/04/28/brian-allen-might-be-the-centerpiece-of-rams-draft/

THOUSAND OAKS — “The basement” has become a metaphor for cyber-driven dysfunction, a teenage wasteland below ground.

The Allen basement, in Hinsdale, Ill., is an exception.

It is the headwater for a long stream of large people in Michigan State uniforms.

On Saturday, it contributed its second son to the NFL.

Brian Allen, Spartan center for four years and the king of the high school mat in his time, was the first of the Rams’ fourth-round picks on Saturday.

His older brother Jack was undrafted after his Michigan State career but made the New Orleans roster in 2016 anyway.

His younger brother Matt is a redshirt freshman in East Lansing and was the top recruit among centers in the Midwest..

Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio was asked to compare Jack to Brian.

“I don’t really like to do that,” he said, “especially in this case, because one of them will get mad at me.”

Dantonio has been to the basement.

“There’s a wrestling mat down there,” he said. “There’s a three-year gap between all the brothers, so they get after it. For us, we’ve had an Allen in the program since 2011 and we’ll have one until 2020. So that’s pretty good.

“When we go to the house, they already know what we’re all about and what our direction is.”

Offensive line coach Mark Staten has gone down those steps, too.

“There’s holes in the wall, they’ve had to get people to come down and work on the sheetrock,” Staten said. ‘It’s about what you’d expect with three brothers like that.”

All three Hinsdale Central wrestlers won Illinois state championships. Brian was the first to get medals all four years. He went 49-0 as a junior, 45-2 as a senior.

John, the father, wrestled at Purdue. Jim Zajicek, John’s stepbrother, was an assistant wrestling coach at Hinsdale Central.

Brian also won the state shot put title and, in football, played on both sides. He was a starting guard alongside Jack as a freshman at East Lansing, moved to center when Jack left, and started his final 28 games for the Spartans, including a blowout win over Washington State in the Holiday Bowl.

Pro Football Focus, in its draft guide, praised Allen’s low stance and noted that he was “never overmatched” in any MSU game.

It also knocked his athleticism and said he was undersized, even though he lists at 6-foot-2, 302.

Staten, who played with Rams offensive line coach Aaron Kromer at Miami of Ohio, says the mat has a way of equalizing all that. Wrestling is the extracurricular activity that football coaches want to see on the worksheet. It identifies want-to, and exposes fear.

“There’s no excuse when you wrestle,” Staten said. “You’re either winning or you’re losing. It’s that one-on-one thing that you have to have when you’re lined up. And you also pick up a lot off things about the physical angles and the leverage.

“Brian learned from his brother. He was our team captain. He knew when to put a boot up somebody’s (backside) and when to put his arm around somebody. He played with a hip problem and some other things, but it was hard to tell because he’d never admit it.”

An NFL scout tabbed Allen “the bully of the Big 10,” but then nobody picked him in the first two days of this draft. It brought up brief nightmares from Jack’s undrafted year. Brian had said beforehand that he would hold no draft party.

“I’ll probably just hang out with the family and sit on the couch like a loser,” he said. “Expect the worst, hope for the best.”

He even pointed out to Staten that he had an extra year of eligibility he could use on wrestling. Academics weren’t a problem, since Allen was a 3.3 economics student.

Roger Chandler, the wrestling coach, had suggested that very thing for years..

“I told Brian to forget it, you’re going to be playing football,” Staten said.

Allen got clarification, in his mind, when he came to Thousand Oaks. “I was telling my agent today that I thought the Rams would take me,” he said.

The current center, John Sullivan, signed a two-year extension, but turns 33 during training camp. The Rams dare not pretend they can get through another 16-game season without a sidelining injury to a starting lineman.

They drafted 10 of their 11 players on Saturday alone. Even a tape freak like Rams general manager Les Snead risked eyestrain.

“But if you’ve been watching football players all fall and December, February and April and you’re kind of dozing off,” Snead said, “you put the Michigan State center on film.”

Soon the basement will be appearing on the Coliseum floor.

Allen Brings Wrestling Mentality to Offensive Line

Read 📰 » https://t.co/6ma63g7tXi pic.twitter.com/yIWSP8cz5Z

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) May 17, 2018

InvaderRam wrote:

well right now i got noteboom, allen, kiser, and ogbo pencilled in as future starters…

gotta be the greatest draft in nfl history i figure…

hahahaha.

It could be a really good one, this draft.

There might be another guy or 2 in there too.

..