The 2024 NFL Draft is here, making it an excellent time to highlight some of the class' best players with scouting reports. Each report will include strengths, weaknesses and background information.
Here's our report on Braelon Allen.
Allen is a significant work in progress as you project him to the next level given his lack of experience as a running back, which shows up consistently on tape. Allen’s Wisconsin tape showed a straight-line, linear downhill runner without much lateral agility or shiftiness. He was too often hesitant and indecisive in the backfield with a lack of innate vision to read blocking schemes, gap fluidity and defensive flow. That resulted in slow feet and sluggishness hitting the hole.
There were clear flashes where the hole was defined or he saw it that resulted in Allen showing short-area burst and explosiveness. That allowed him to generate speed and velocity into the second and third levels of the defense.
Another concern was more often than not he did not run with the kind of power and physicality expected from a 235-pound back. There were too many runs in which he went down too easily on first contact. There were runs in which Allen got downhill with burst and velocity and showed the power that is in his big body, but there were not enough of them. Those kinds of runs must be a foundation of his game if he is to have success at the next level.
Allen is a true north-south downhill runner who at this point, based on his college tape, needs the hole to be defined and a clear runway to maximize his running traits. He needs to become a much better and more physical confined space runner to develop into a primary back at the next level.
Allen was a 4-star recruit coming out of high school as a linebacker and stayed in-state to play for Wisconsin, which switched him to running back. He made an immediate impact as a true freshman, rushing for 1,268 yards. In his three years at Wisconsin, Allen rushed for 3,494 yards with 35 TDs.
In 2022, 177 of Allen’s 230 carries came as an I-back in Wisconsin’s pro-style run game. He has extensive experience in both the zone and gap scheme run games, and Wisconsin featured the center/tackle pull scheme. In 2023 with the change in offensive coordinator to Phil Longo, Allen was a predominant shotgun back with 163 of his 181 carries coming as an offset back in the shotgun.
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