Former Oregon two-sport star Devon Allen signs with Philadelphia Eagles
More than five years removed from his last football game, Devon Allen is officially making a return to the sport.
On Friday, the Philadelphia Eagles announced that they have signed Allen. The details of his contract have not been announced yet.
Allen, 27, is a two-time Olympian in the 110-meter hurdles and finished fourth in the event at the Tokyo Olympics last summer. He ended 2021 ranked as the No. 1 hurdler in the world in his event, despite the field currently being loaded with elite, all-time talent.
Last Thursday, he told worldathletics.org that he was planning a return to football. The next day, he performed at Oregon’s pro day and delivered some eye-popping results.
Afterward, he spoke with reporters and said he will still compete at the World Athletic Championships in Eugene this summer and will then fully turn his attention to football. He said his plan was always to focus on track through the 2020 Olympics before working to return to football.
The pandemic altered that roadmap by a year, but now, it appears that all has gone according to plan.
“I’ve still got six or seven good years of track and field and still have some opportunities to do that,” Allen said at Oregon’s pro day. “But other than that, this was the plan — to get back into football and see what I can do there. Whether my career is 10 years or a short career, I’ve gotta at least try.
“Because I don’t wanna be 40, 50 years old and wish I would have tried.”
Allen has not played in a game since Sept. 2016, when he tore his ACL for the second time in what proved to be his final game as a Duck.
Throughout three football seasons at Oregon, though, he proved to be an electric playmaker when healthy. In 2014, he hauled in 41 passes for 684 yards and a team-high seven receiving touchdowns.
“To be honest, I think I took a lot of pride in blocking while I was (at Oregon) and specifically with our 2014 team,” Allen said. “With Keanan Lowe, (Darren Carrington) and Dwayne Stanford and all those guys — I take a lot of pride in that. I’m not gonna take all the credit, but Royce Freeman and Thomas Tyner had, probably, one of the greatest seasons as running backs in the history of Oregon because we took a lot of pride in that… I took pride in my physicality and just my ability to make plays happen
“Obviously my schtick is me being fast, so I made sure I was the fastest guy on the field.”
