Making Sense of Signing Olympic Hurdler Devon Allen

Finding a punt returner.

That could be the Eagles’ thought process when they decided to sign Devon Allen, a 27-year-old who hasn’t played a down of football in six years.

Allen has the speed to do it, running a 4.35 at Oregon’s pro day last week, and he certainly has the experience of performing on one of the biggest stages in the world, the Olympic Summer Games. Not just once, but twice, having made the U.S. team in 2016 and 2020 as a 110-meter hurdler and finishing just off the medal stand in both appearances ending fifth and, four years later, fifth.

What Allen doesn’t have, aside from not having put on a football uniform since 2016, is experience in the return game. Even when he played for the Ducks, he was used only on kickoff returns and that was his first season in Eugene, returning eight kickoffs for a 26.1-yard return average in 2014.

It seems improbable that he will be able to do it, but who knows?

Not you or me and probably not the Eagles, but it feels like they’re going to try.

How else to explain Friday's out-of-the-blue signing. They don’t think he can beat out Greg Ward or J.J. Arcega-Whiteside do they?

If Allen can return punts effectively, maybe he can.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Eagles took an Olympian and crossed their fingers he could return punts.

They selected Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom in the fifth round of the 2006 draft.

At 15, Bloom became the youngest male freestyle skier to ever make the U.S. Ski Team. He finished ninth in the 2002 Olympics and sixth in the 2006 Olympics in his events.

Bloom had returned both kicks and punts in two seasons at Colorado but never made it to the season’s starting line. He suffered a hamstring injury during training camp and spent his rookie season on IR.

He returned in 2007, averaged 20.3 yards on 12 kickoff returns and 7.8 yards on 10 punt returns in the preseason, but was released at the end of camp. He surfaced with the Pittsburgh Steelers and spent 2008's training camp with them but was released at the end of it.

The Eagles took another shot outside the football boundaries, finding DeAndre Carter in 2018 after Carter had spent some of 2016 as a substitute teacher at Martin Luther King Middle School.

Carter was a perfect fit, but the Eagles needed his roster spot and waived him on Nov. 6, 2018, hoping to get him right back. He was claimed by the Texans the next day, however. Carter hasn’t had to return to substitute teaching and was one of seven players to have a kickoff return for a touchdown last season.

The last time the Eagles had a kickoff return touchdown was in back-to-back weeks of the 2016 season when Wendell Smallwood went 86 yards against Washington with Josh Huff taking one back 98 yards the following week against Minnesota.

Jalen Reagor has shown sparks of being good at it, and maybe he will eventually become more consistent. His 73-yard punt return for a TD in Green Bay late in his rookie season was a glimpse of what could be possible, but there just seems to be too many inconsistencies in his decision-making.

And there’s always the chance the Eagles could look to trade him prior to this month’s draft or during the draft.

The Eagles have had some terrific kick and punt returners in their time, including Brian Mitchell and, most recently, Darren Sproles.

It’s a need this season, for sure, and the Eagles know it.

They have arranged a top-30 visit with Marcus Jones, an experienced returner from the University of Houston and maybe they are thinking they will give another Olympian a crack at it by signing Allen.

At least they didn’t go after another fireman like Danny Watkins and try to shoe-horn him onto the offensive line.

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.