Behind the scenes at the NFL Draft: Waiting for the call that never came with Allen Lazard

AMES, Ia. — Minutes after the final pick of the 2018 NFL Draft, Allen Lazard stayed sitting in a booth at Buffalo Wild Wings in Ames, clutching his phone as he had been for most of Sunday, waiting for a call that never came.

Lazard, the former blue-chip prep prospect who became Iowa State's most decorated receiver, was stunned. He was projected, almost universally by experts, to be drafted.

But 256 picks were made Thursday through Saturday, and not one was Allen Lazard.

As he sat in the booth, Greg Brabenec, the Cyclones football team’s director of operations, walked up and handed Lazard a phone. On the other end was Iowa State football coach Matt Campbell.

“' Look, you’re better than the receivers or basically any player after the third round, so don’t stress about this — you’re in a better position now than if you were to go a couple of minutes earlier just because you choose your destiny right now,' " Campbell told him, Lazard recalled.

It was some final coaching from Campbell to his star receiver.

Last week, two days before the draft began in Arlington, Texas, one of the most respected talent evaluators, the NFL Network's Mike Mayock, ranked Lazard the 80th best player among the 2018 prospects.

It seemed so likely that Lazard was going to become Iowa State's first draft pick since 2014 that he held a draft party not far from Jack Trice Stadium. More than 150 of his family, friends and coaches were at the restaurant to watch it unfold.

A bottle of champagne with two balloons tied to it sat at the start of a receiving line for food. One of the balloons was an Iowa State football. The other read, “Congratulations.”

The wait

They were all waiting for the same thing: Lazard’s phone to ring with the news that he’d be drafted. Lazard was just as anxious. In fact, he thought the call was coming the night before when a reporter from Wisconsin called him during the draft. Lazard, who was watching it unfold at home, saw the area code and thought it might be the Green Bay Packers.

“Obviously, my heart stopped a little bit, thinking I was about to get drafted,” Lazard said. “But it kicked back in once I realized I wasn’t.”

Saturday was going to be the day, though. ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay both had Lazard projected to get drafted on the draft's third day.

Lazard kept his phone with him as he bounced from table to table, talking to everyone who came to cheer him on. His father, Kevin, a former Iowa State football player too, even encouraged him to put his headphones in to make sure he could hear his phone ring. Kevin Lazard walked around with a sheet of paper that had all the NFL Scouting Combine performances of all the receivers who performed there with his son.

“So that I could kind of get an idea of, 'Man, is he going to get picked next or could he be next?' ” Kevin said. “Just kind of get an idea. And also see how he compared to the other people too.”

NFL teams typically phone the player they are taking before the NFL Draft pick is announced on TV. It’s something Lazard was well prepared for. But as the draft wore on, the only calls he received were from his agent, Michael Perrett, who was keeping him up to date on things.

At the end of the fourth round, he called Lazard to let him know that his window was opening and that teams might start looking at him. Perrett wanted Lazard to be ready. Perrett told him there were teams interested in Lazard, a red-zone terror in college. But the rub was, the teams didn’t know where Lazard fit in.

As prodigious as he was at Iowa State, Lazard is an unusual receiver. He's massive, standing 6-foot-5 and weight 227 pounds at the combine. But questions about his ability to separate from defenders persisted. NFL teams told Lazard's agent they didn't know whether he was a receiver or tight end at the next level.

That hurt Lazard the most in the end. Without clarity to that question, Perrett said, teams couldn't justify using a selection on Lazard. In other cases, interested teams addressed other needs with picks that could have been used on his client.

Lazard waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Midway through the fifth round, he grabbed a beer. Throughout the day, kids at the restaurant came over and snapped selfies with him. He tried to keep a good face.

“Always cool, calm and collected,” said his friend Ryan Lillard.

Before long in the fifth round, a new reality set in: Lazard began to understand that the call may never come.

“I saw a lot of guys that I think that it’s clear that I’m better than that were still getting picked up ahead of me,” said Lazard, a former Urbandale High School standout. “I think a lot of teams were just banking on me going to free agency.”

Lazard ended the day at a high table, sitting in a booth with his family and close friend and fellow Cyclones standout Joel Lanning sitting by his side. At the top of the seventh round, Lazard received a call.

Some people at the draft party began snapping photos of Lazard, thinking that was the call they had all been waiting on. It wasn't.

On the other end, Perrett was preparing Lazard to go undrafted. The agent wanted him to look at NFL rosters and start thinking about what situation might be the best fit for him.

The spotlight even turned to Lanning, who stepped away from the crowd in the sixth round when his phone rang. A camera crew for Iowa State, following Lazard during the day, shined the light on Lanning.

“I was praying for him too because I know everything he’s been through and all the hard work he’s been through,” Lazard said.

And as the final pick was read and the bar quieted down, Lazard still held out hope that the name called might be his. Deep down, though, he knew it wasn’t: His phone hadn’t rung. No one had called to tell him that he would be the final pick, known as “Mr. Irrelevant.” Instead, Lazard quietly waited as the Washington Redskins selected Trey Quinn, another receiver, with the final pick.

Lazard, who had played with Quinn in the 2014 U.S. Army All-American game, told Lanning he thought it was a perfect pick.

“A very quiet kid — hard worker,” Lazard told his former teammate.

What's next

As Lazard digested what had happened, Brabenec walked up to him with Campbell on the other line.

And Campbell was right, Lazard realized: There were other opportunities still ahead of him. He ended up agreeing to a non-drafted free agent deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars — one of the NFL's top teams and one that happens to have a need at receiver.

The deal is worth $40,000 guaranteed. Lazard was also promised that Jacksonville wouldn’t sign another undrafted wide receiver.

“There were teams looking at him putting on some more weight and specifically going to tight end,” Perrett said. “There were teams that were looking to kind of use him as a hybrid tight end/wide receiver. And then there were other teams that were looking at him as a wide receiver first and as kind of a red zone, special teams presence — things like that. Those are the ones that Allen and I were kind of gravitating toward.”

It’s a route Lazard didn’t expect to have to go. But it's one he now embraces.

“A lot of ups and downs, for sure,” he said. “Obviously, having some friends get drafted today was really nice. Obviously, I’m happy for their success. But going into this, I was very anxious, very ambitious and (hopeful). I’m very let down and disappointed at the way the result came out today, but this is nothing new to my life. I’ve always been the kid from Iowa who wasn’t good enough to play college football. Now that I went to Iowa State, (it was) 'Iowa State will never be good.' Now I’m that kid that’s undrafted."

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