He played well in 2021. He did. No one would debate that. But there are questions surrounding Allen, like:
- would it impact (or matter to) Stafford to switch centers? I would imagine he has an opinion.
- is there much (or any) drop off from Allen to Shelton? Shelton seemingly played well when given a chance, but he also only played 215 snaps (and only 23 others his previous two seasons). Is that enough to decide to make him their starting center for 2022? And he'd be a FA in 2023- are the Rams OK with a new center every year?
- what's the free agent market for Allen? If it's $6M/year then I'd expect he's somewhere else. But if they could retain him for say 2 yrs./$5.5M is he worth bringing back? I'd say yes.
Continuity on the OL matters. Do the Rams really want to have
three new starters in 2022? Maybe if they retain Noteboom you can argue it's not really three new starters necessarily. But I think center is the 2nd most important position on the OL.
