Is Devon Allen the fastest wide receiver in the NFL, or the 110-meter hurdler with the best hands?
In the next few months, he hopes to leave little doubt about either.
After spending the entirety of the 2022 NFL season on the Philadelphia Eagles’ practice squad, Allen’s focus has shifted back to the track, where he’s already recorded the seventh-fastest time in the world in his event this year. He’ll next set his sights on winning a fourth career national title at the U.S. outdoor track and field championships, which start Thursday in Eugene, Oregon. Then perhaps a trip to Budapest for the track world championships, training camp with the Eagles − and, he hopes, another Super Bowl run.
“I still have a lot to accomplish in both sports,” Allen said late last month, after a second-place finish at the NYC Grand Prix. “I’ve still got goals (in track) − world championship medals, world records. And then on top of that, to contribute and play football and win a Super Bowl.”
Allen officially became a two-sport pro last spring, when he signed a contract with the Eagles after a six-year hiatus from football. But the rhythm of last year’s track schedule allowed for a clean break from track and transition to football.
This year, for the first time since his college days at Oregon, it’s been a true juggling act.
The Eagles’ trip to the Super Bowl prolonged Allen’s football season while delaying the start of his track training to March. He didn’t race indoors, and his first meet didn’t come until the end of April, at Penn Relays. The 28-year-old said he spent a large chunk of May straddling the two sports − football practices four days per week until about 2 p.m., then track workouts squeezed in afterwards.
“That’s not ideal in the big landscape of things,” Allen said, “but it does give me an emphasis on what’s important − being fast, being strong and being healthy. So that’s what I focus on.”
Allen’s hurdling coach, Jamie Cook, believes football and track are nice complements to one another, though he noted some of the technical differences are significant and have taken time to work through.
In football, there’s a premium placed on deceleration and lateral movement, and receivers like Allen are trained to keep a low center of gravity when entering and exiting the breaks in their routes. In track, and hurdles specifically, the goal is the complete opposite − to run in a straight line without decelerating, and to run tall, clearing 42-inch hurdles without lowering one’s center of gravity.
“It’s such a specific focus when you’re in football, and obviously such a specific focus when you’re a hurdler,” said Cook, who oversees the track and field program at Navy. “And I think some people don’t really realize that you’re dealing with the best of the best in the world to try to still find a spot − to be successful in the NFL and to be successful on the world stage in track and field.”
Allen said many aspects of his return to track have come naturally. The trickiest part has been staying healthy and striking the balance between training and competing; Allen said he’s entered more competitions than he normally would this year in an effort to get up to speed.
“I’m just becoming more of a veteran in the sport and knowing what I need in terms of training, knowing what I need to do in terms of scheduling, listening to my body,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how much you train if you’re hurt. If you can’t show up to a meet and compete, it doesn’t matter.”
Despite the late start to his track season, Allen has shown incremental progress. In the six weeks leading up to nationals, he competed at four meets and lowered his season best by a fraction of a second at every one of them, including a time of 13.04 seconds in New York in late June. Only four people in the world have run a faster time this year. Grant Holloway’s winning time in last summer’s world championship final was 13.03.
“As an elite hurdler, whenever you hover around the 13-second mark, you’re putting yourself in position to win almost every race,” Cook said. “So we’ve targeted those training numbers, and he’s met them really well.”
With a top-three finish later this week, he’ll earn a trip back to the world championships, where he appeared destined to medal last year before being disqualified for a false start in shocking and controversial fashion. Allen left the blocks after the starting gun was fired but one-thousandth of a second faster than the minimum allowable reaction time of 0.1 seconds, leaving onlookers like former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III to lament that “he got punished for being TOO FAST.”
“I try to forget about it,” Allen said, when asked about the controversial DQ. “It’s like when you have a really bad, traumatic experience, you black out. So I don’t even remember what happened. What are you talking about?”
In addition to offering a chance at redemption, however, the next few weeks could also pose a dilemma. The Eagles will open training camp July 25, and the 110-meter hurdles final in Budapest (on August 21) falls directly in between the team’s preseason games against the Cleveland Browns (August 17) and Indianapolis Colts (August 24).
Allen hasn’t clarified how he will handle the scheduling conflict, should he make it to worlds, and Cook said they haven’t talked about it.
What’s clear, however, is that Allen has every intention of continuing to pursue a future in both sports.
A two-time Olympian who finished fourth at the 2021 Games in Tokyo, Allen figures to once again be in contention for the Olympic podium in Paris next summer. In the meantime, he’ll try to carve out a role on the Eagles’ 53-man roster, either as a receiver or a special teams contributor.
When asked if there’s a point at which he might step away from football, and return his sole focus to track, Allen said he just can’t envision it.
“The NFL, the athletes there are great. But I’m a great athlete, too,” he said. “I belong. I just need to find my role.”
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.
