When Keenan Allen announced his intention to declare for the NFL Draft on Dec. 5, he had no reason to believe he was going to fall out of the first round.
With CBS Sports ranking Allen as the 13th best prospect — the highest among wide receivers — in the class of 2012, his draft stock was solidly entrenched in the first round.
Fast forward nearly six months, and Allen waited all Thursday afternoon to get that one call from an NFL team, congratulating the former Cal receiver in being drafted in the first round. Alas, the former Cal receiver never got the call and watched the first 32 picks go by.
Allen’s snub out of the first round was a slow decline rather than a fast spiral down. Injuries to his right knee and concerns about his right ankle concerned many NFL scouts. After injuring his knee while playing against Utah on Oct. 27, Allen has been making a slower than expected recovery. After missing the NFL Combine in February, Allen returned to action in early April at his home in Greensboro, N.C., only to run a mediocre 4.7 40-yard dash time range.
On April 18, a week from the draft, Allen recently went to Indianapolis to get his right ankle rechecked, according to ESPN.
It was not just physical injuries that caused Allen, the all-time leader in receptions in Cal football history, to not getting drafted in the first round. On April 16, Allen was red-flagged for a drug test and was ordered to undergo another test this month. This added more concern for the scouts who were already skeptical about Allen’s fitness beforehand.
With Allen’s omission from the first-round, this marks the second consecutive year in which a Cal football player was not drafted in the first round. The last first round pick from Cal was defensive end Cameron Jordan, who was drafted by the New Orleans Saints in 2011.