EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Raw speed was never his game, and maybe that helps explain why Keenan Allen has aged so gracefully in his NFL receiving career.
“Father Time isn’t really nipping at his heels because he was never a 4.3 guy,” said Hall of Fame receiver James Lofton, referring to Allen’s time in the 40-yard dash. “He’s like a designated hitter in baseball or a great three-point shooter in basketball. Those players are always going to be there, and he has the ability to make them.”
Allen, who could make NFL history Sunday when the Chargers play at the New York Giants, runs his routes with surgical precision and has Houdini hands, typically emerging with the football even when a defender is superglued to him.
“I don’t count on my speed to get open,” said Allen, 33. “It’s more like, in close spaces I’ve got to win.”
In another sense, he might be the fastest pass catcher in NFL history. He needs seven more receptions to reach 1,000 for his career, likely doing so in fewer games than any player ever. Sunday will be his 158th game. As it stands, the fastest to 1,000 is Marvin Harrison in 167.
Allen has caught touchdown passes in all three games for the undefeated Chargers, including a 20-yarder against Denver last Sunday that was astounding on both ends — Matrix-like sidearmed sling by Justin Herbert and jaw-dropping catch by Allen who was wearing a defender like an overcoat.
“I was in the end-zone family section right behind him,” Zach Maynard said. “I was in shock. I didn’t even know how to celebrate. It was one of those plays where you sit there and say, ‘Oh, my God, did that actually just happen?’”
If Maynard was in shock, that’s saying something. He’s Allen’s half-brother and his first quarterback, so he’s intimately familiar with what the football world now knows: never underestimate No. 13.
“It’s kind of like watching LeBron still dunking at 40,” Maynard said. “Keenan’s still competing at the highest level.”
Allen, whose NFL seasons match his jersey number, is plenty youthful too. He doesn’t “talk old,” as coach Jim Harbaugh likes to say.
“You start talking old, you start playing old,” Harbaugh said. “It’s an obvious mindset. I don’t see any difference [in him], just Keenan Allen doing Keenan Allen things that he’s always done. Never once heard him talk old, so there’s a pretty good chance he’s not thinking it.”
And to think Allen would have been OK calling it a career had the Chargers not reached out to him in August after the surprise retirement of Mike Williams. That’s when Allen ran a comeback pattern, signing a one-year deal with the Chargers, where he spent his first 11 seasons before they traded him to Chicago last year.
“I just wanted to be back here playing with the guys I came up with and the colors I started with,” he said.
Thirty-three isn’t old to the outside world, but by NFL receiving standards, it’s a flip phone in the age of Androids. With that long beard, Allen is Grip Van Winkle.
Hall of Fame receiver Tim Brown, who retired at 38, says elite receivers have two elevators. When the physical elevator goes down, the mental elevator rises, allowing the player new and crafty ways to get open.
“It’s about working smarter, not harder,” Brown said. “If I could avoid that fight at the line of scrimmage, or at the top of my route, then in my mind it just gave me the energy to play another play.
“The great thing about Keenan is he’s an excellent route runner. He knows how to put his foot in the ground, and even being a big guy, get out and make things happen.”
Allen, listed at 6-foot-2 and 211 pounds, appears even more solid than that. He played all sorts of positions growing up in North Carolina, and was recruited to Alabama as a safety. Maynard is three years older, and when he decided to transfer from Buffalo to the University of California, his younger brother decided to follow him to Berkeley.
In 2011, Allen’s sophomore season, NFL scouts converged on a USC-Cal game in part to scout receivers such as Robert Woods, Marqise Lee and Marvin Jones. Cal lost, 30-9, but Allen had 13 catches for 160 yards.
Tom Telesco, who would be general manager of the Chargers two years later, was in the Indianapolis Colts personnel department at the time, working under the legendary GM Bill Polian.
“We’re walking out of the stadium and Bill looks at me and he’s like, ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’” Telesco recalled. “And I look at him like, ‘You mean that sophomore receiver who was the best player on the field?’ That was Keenan. Bill looked at me and said, ‘He’s Andre Reed.’”
That was lofty praise, considering Reed, a Hall of Fame receiver, was such an integral part of those Buffalo Bills who reached four consecutive Super Bowls. Polian was instrumental in assembling those teams.
“Andre was a little heavier — he was a tight end in college — but with great route runners like both of them are, guys I would term natural receivers, they’re capable of adjusting to that loss of a step or half-step with the way they run their routes,” Polian said. “Also, the way they work with their quarterbacks in terms of ball positioning.”
Philip Rivers, longtime Chargers quarterback, was on the same wavelength as Allen. Similar to the relationship Allen now has with Herbert.
“There would be times where I’d holler at him out there like, ‘Hey!’” Rivers said. “And he’d kind of nod at me like, ‘I see it. We’re good. Don’t say anymore or we’ll give it away.’”
Much of their communication was wordless.
“You could throw behind him and almost talk to him with the ball,” Rivers said. “Depending where I threw it, he’d be able to throttle it on or off and make the catch.”
Allen is particularly adept at having “late hands,” waiting until the last possible moment to reach up and latch onto the football, rather than giving the defender ample time beforehand to prepare for the incoming pass.
“It’s just repetition,” said Allen, sitting at his locker while speaking to a reporter. “I could reach up my hands right now and catch a ball and you’d have never seen it coming. It just appears.”
The memory of the USC-Cal game was still fresh in Telesco’s mind when he was in the Chargers draft room in 2013. The team had a first-round grade on Allen but wasn’t really looking for a receiver. Yet when the third round came around and Allen was still on the board…
“Keenan’s card is sitting up there and [scout] JoJo Wooden tapped me and said, ‘What about Keenan here?’” Telesco said. “I said, ‘Look, we can do it but he’s probably going to be inactive for the whole year and be a developmental player.’ And JoJo said, ‘Dude, just take him. Don’t overthink this.’”
The Chargers did, and Allen played early because of various injuries at receiver. He led all NFL rookies with 71 receptions and broke multiple team rookie records.
“I had no idea the Chargers were going to take me,” he said. “Never talked to them. Never took a visit.”
The Chargers fooled everyone. They had late hands.
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