Colts draft LB C.J. Allen - Round 2, Pick 53

[IndyNorm]

Originally Posted by Kray007

A lot of people are freaking out over the fact that one analyst suggested that his closest comp is to Zaire Franklin. Frankly, I don’t get the pearl clutching. Zaire was a helluva player, he was a legit pro bowler.

To me, the place that the comparison to Franklin becomes tenuous is that Allen is just better. Better speed, better instincts, better nasty. He has a nose for the ball and makes plays in the hole. He’s smart, he’s a true field general, he diagnoses, gets everyone on the right page, and makes everyone around him just a little bit better.

He doesn’t excel in coverage, but you can scheme around that, especially if Jaylon Carlies recovers and plays up to the potential he showed in 2024.

To me, if I had to pick a comp, I’d go back to Mike Singletsry. Singletary didn’t have great coverage skills, but he excelled at diagnosing and being in thebright place.

Not so sure about the Mike Singletary comp. If Allen ends up being 1/4 as good as that then we'll all be thrilled w/ the pick.

But agree that if Allen ends up being a better version of Franklin then it'll be a good pick. I think we forget how good Franklin was from 21-23 b/c his regression is forefront in our minds. Also, when Franklin wasn't coupled with a good coverage LB he was very much exposed since he was asked to do things he wasn't good at.

Although I do wish we had gone w/ Hill instead of Allen there as from what I've read Hill is that he' really good in coverage, and he made more high impact plays in his college career. But Hill was also the 5th LB drafted in the 2nd round, so we weren't the only ones who passed on him.