Atlanta Falcons Will Regret Extending Ricardo Allen

Despite the improvements Ricardo Allen has made while playing for the Atlanta Falcons, the organization erred in extending his contract.

A week before their first preseason game, the Atlanta Falcons announced they had signed Allen to a new 3-year, 19.5 million dollar contract.

To be clear, Allen deserves the money. He’s had tremendous growth as a tackler in the open field in the last two seasons under Coach Dan Quinn’s direction.  His ability to interrupt passes has also been a factor in the improved secondary play.

Allen’s story is a feel good, Cinderella story. A guy cut by the team as a rookie works his way back to the squad, changes positions, becomes a starter and earns the respect of teammates, coaches and fans by becoming one of the best defenders on the field. His teammates and coaches regard him as a leader on the field.

“The first day I walked in he kind of took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, helped me learn the defense and all the techniques.”- Brian Poole, Atlanta Falcons cornerback, told Matt Winkeljohn for the AJC in January 2017.

Unfortunately for the Falcons, they could not afford to be the team to pay Allen his worth.

The Falcons front office typically does right by the players. They resign those deserving. That much has been shown with new contracts for Jake Matthews and Matt Ryan this offseason prior to Allen’s resigning. Devontae Freeman was a rewarded with a big contract last offseason, as was Desmond Trufant.

Although Julio Jones’s holdout did not earn him a new contract this offseason, the Falcons proved generous by stating their willingness to renegotiate three years into a five-year deal when they could easily balk at the threat.

The team is reaching a point, however, where they will have to start sacrificing certain players to resign others. They can’t afford to keep everyone.

Thomas Dimitroff made it clear that resigning Grady Jarret is the next priority for the front office. Tevon Coleman will hit free agency this season.

In 2019 and 2020 DeVondre Campbell, Vic Beasley, *Keanu Neal, and Deion Jones will command top dollar following their bargain bin rookie contracts. (*Neal could not be a free agent until 2021 if the Falcons use their 5th-year option on his rookie contract).

Jones, Jarret, and Neal will command the highest price tag from the Falcons. With those three needing to be resigned, it’s possible that a key player such as Campbell will be the odd man out.

The money that was used to extend Allen’s deal could have gone to Campbell or Coleman instead.

In particular, Campbell’s skillset is at least as valuable as Allen’s. Unlike Campbell, Allen has a successor waiting in the wings.

Damontae Kazee has been the breakout player of the preseason. He followed a highly lauded, hard-hitting game against the Jets with an impressive interception off of Patrick Maholmes in the Falcon’s second preseason game.

It’s easy to read too much into preseason games when third stringers are playing other third stringers and the starters sit for 90% of the game, but the coaches believe Kazee a genuine threat to steal snaps from Allen.

The combination of young talent behind Allen and young talent preparing to bust the Falcons’ salary cap raises doubts about why the Falcons felt so rushed to re-sign Allen.

They could have let the season play out. If Allen proved to be substantially better than Kazee and more worth the money than Campbell or Beasley, then they could have chosen to negotiate during or after the season. Should he prove unworthy of the pay raise, the Falcons could have let him explore his options in free agency, knowing they had the extra money to resign another big name later or search the free agent market themselves.