Jonathan Allen expresses his excitement after learning of reunion with Da’Ron Payne
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Two of the best Alabama defensive linemen in recent Crimson Tide history are together again following Washington’s selection of Da’Ron Payne with the No. 13 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. His selection comes one year after the Redskins picked Jonathan Allen with the No. 17 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.
According to Allen, he was in on the team’s decision to draft Payne to some extent but did not necessarily attempt to pitch his former Crimson Tide teammate to the Redskins. Instead, he offered up his glowing assessment and left it up to the team to make the call.
“I really didn’t try to think about that, I mean I don’t want people to get the impression that the whole time I’m just saying, ‘You have to draft this guy.’ That’s not what happened,” Allen told Redskins.com according to the site’s managing editor Stephen Czarda. “They asked me my honest opinion about him and I gave it to them because we were so close, a bunch of guys at Alabama. So I just gave them my honest opinion, I don’t want people to think I was up there lobbying for him the whole time, but of course I want to play with my teammate and I’m excited that we got him.
Following the pick, the Washington defensive end knows his club made the right call in the first round of Thursday night’s draft by taking Payne.
“But it was one of those things where he was just giving me an update as to what we were doing and obviously I’m on board with it and super excited about it.”
The Redskins now have three of the pieces, counting 2017 pick Ryan Anderson also in the mix, of one of the SEC’s most dominant defensive fronts in league history. Allen believes the selections prove that the team is serious about creating a defensive edge after taking the three former Crimson Tide defenders.
“It definitely shows the direction they want to go in mentality-wise,” Allen said. “It’s definitely an atmosphere that we’re trying to change here with the Washington Redskins, it definitely shows that we’re trying to become a more physical, aggressive defensive group and drafting the guys that they have is definitely going to help us move in that right direction. So that’s kind of the goal that we’re trying to move towards and just establish a new identity for ourselves.”
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
