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Unpacking Future Packers: No.74, Wisconsin RB Braelon Allen

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Unpacking Future Packers: No.74, Wisconsin RB Braelon Allen


The Unpacking Future Packers Countdown is a countdown of 100 prospects that could be selected by the Green Bay Packers in the 2024 NFL draft.

If the Green Bay Packers don’t re-sign AJ Dillon, they’ll have to find a new running mate for Aaron Jones.

A running back that Brian Gutekunst could target to replace Dillon in the 2024 NFL Draft is Braelon Allen. The Wisconsin running back checks in at No. 74 in the Unpacking Future Packers Countdown.

A Wisconsin native, Allen made a name for himself right out of the gates as a Badger, rushing for 1,268 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2021. During the 2022 campaign, Allen rushed for 1,242 yards and 11 touchdowns. 

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In 11 games this past season, Allen rushed for 984 yards and 12 touchdowns. He added 28 receptions for 132 yards.

“It may sound cliché, but he was the heartbeat of the team,” Christian Borman, a contributor for Badgernotes.com, said. “The offense ran through him in 2022. Then, instead of bolting to the transfer portal after they made the coaching change, he stayed. I think a lot of players and fans respected that.”

Allen is built like a tank. It will be interesting to see his official weight when he weighs in at the NFL Scouting Combine. While he’s not the most explosive back, he’s a powerful, strapping runner who could be a perfect complementary piece to Jones. 

“He was a physical freak coming out of high school,” Borman said. “He was able to re-classify a year earlier and contributed to the program as a true freshman at 17 years old because he was physically able to. You can see it in his running style. He can run through arm tackles with ease and it often takes multiple players to take him down.”

Allen shreds arm tackles and keeps his feet driving at contact. When he reaches the second level he looks to punish second-level defenders. He’s able to pinball off defenders and racked up 682 yards after contact this season and 2,182 yards after contact for his career. He makes it a chore for defenders to get him down. He typically finishes forward. 

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“I think for a guy his size, you’d expect him to be able to run through opponents, but his balance jumps out at you,” Borman said. “He can run through you or bounce off of you. He’s never going to be the fastest guy on the field, but he makes up for it with his strength.”

During his first two seasons as a Badger, Allen accounted for 21 receptions. This past season, in a new offensive system, Allen hauled in 28 receptions. He shows soft hands and was charged with just one drop on 30 targets this past season.

He’ll likely never be a featured receiving back, but he’s a serviceable check down back. 

“I think this is a similar case to Jonathan Taylor when he was entering his final year at Wisconsin,” Borman said. “He was primarily a running threat and not featured often in the passing attack. I think Paul Chryst tried to get Taylor more involved in the passing game because he was a threat with the ball in his hands and to potentially showcase his pass-catching ability for the next level.  Allen’s situation is different because the Badgers transitioned from a pro-style offense he spent his first two seasons in, to an air raid offense under Phil Longo. In Longo’s scheme, you have to be able to throw the ball back in check-down situations. I think that’s the biggest reason you saw the bump in his receptions this year compared to his previous two. I think he is still going to be a work in progress as a pass-catcher in the NFL. I don’t want to make the comp just because of size, but I think he could be like AJ Dillon. Serviceable as a pass-catcher, but he’s probably not going to be a guy teams have to focus on stopping in the passing game.”

Fit with the Packers

Jones is set to turn 30 in December and currently has one year left on his contract. The Packers need to find a way to extend his career and adding a back like Allen that could help take the load off could go a long way in helping Jones fresh. 

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Allen has the size and strength to be the perfect complementary piece to Jones. When the New York Giants had Tiki Barber and Ron Dayne they called that duo Thunder and Lightning. The pairing of Jones and Allen could be Green Bay’s version of Thunder and Lightning. 

“I think he could be a featured back for a team in the NFL, but I think he would work well as a part of a one-two punch with another back that compliments his playing style, similarly to Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon,” Borman said. “I think he’d be a solid mid-round pick to pair with another back on my team.”

Allen comes with obvious risks. He has 597 carries to his name and he’s not the most dynamic of backs. On top of that, he doesn’t offer a ton in terms of pass-catching ability out of the backfield. 

On the flip side, Allen is a powerful runner who just turned 20 years old in January. His best football could be ahead of him. 

Depending on what happens with Dillon, the Packers will need to find Jones a new running mate and potentially start thinking about life after Jones. 

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Allen isn’t a home run hitter, but he’ll keep coming to the plate and delivering singles and doubles. That wears on a defense. Adding him on Day 3 to pair with Jones seems like a match made in Wisconsin. 

“I know running backs are seemingly a dime a dozen in the NFL, but young, productive running backs are always valuable,” Borman said. “He’s a young and physical back who just turned 20 years old in January. He’s a work in progress in pass-catching and pass protection, but that can be taught. You can’t teach his strength.”

 



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Wisconsin Weekend: Pride bar crawl, Father’s Day deals, and more

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Wisconsin Weekend: Pride bar crawl, Father’s Day deals, and more


MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee has no shortage of ways to celebrate this weekend, from a Pride bar crawl to Father’s Day deals around the city and Juneteenth celebrations.

Summerfest and Northcott Neighborhood House are hosting a Juneteenth celebration filled with music and culture at the Summerfest grounds.

Watch: Kidd O’Shea breaks down this weekend’s events:

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Wisconsin Weekend in a Minute: June 19-21

The event kicks off right after the traditional Juneteenth Day Festival wraps up.

Pride Bar Crawl

The 9th annual Pride Bar Crawl kicks off Saturday at 4 p.m. at Walker’s Pint.

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Tickets include drinks and access to exclusive specials at partner bars. Twenty percent of proceeds will benefit the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center.

The crawl wraps up with an after-party and drag show at La Cage Nightclub.

Father’s Day

On Sunday, The Motor Restaurant at the Harley-Davidson Museum is offering a free beer for dad when purchased with a meal, along with free admission to the museum. Reservations are highly encouraged.

Families can also take dad to the Milwaukee County Zoo, where all fathers receive free admission on Sunday.

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These Wisconsin swing voters say Trump’s war in Iran wasn’t worth it

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These Wisconsin swing voters say Trump’s war in Iran wasn’t worth it


Vessels are anchored along the Strait of Hormuz.

Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images


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Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images

The war in Iran was a costly blunder, according to swing voters in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

NPR observed two online focus groups on Tuesday featuring voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 and then Donald Trump in 2024.

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President Trump had just announced a framework agreement to end the war, which he signed on Wednesday.

Yet among the focus groups’ 13 participants, no one said they thought the conflict with Iran was “worth it,” and nine said they felt that the U.S. is coming out of this conflict weaker than before.

Corey M., a 33-year-old independent voter, said he is concerned that the U.S. expended “so much financially and so much of our arsenal,” with little to show for it. (All participants agreed to be part of the focus groups on the condition that they be identified by their first name and last initial only.)

“We essentially got nothing out of it,” he said. “It’s hurt our economy and increased expenses for the everyday American, and it accomplished the square root of nothing.”

Focus groups are not scientifically significant like polling. But they provide insight into how Americans are thinking about what they see in the news.

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These focus groups — made up of 10 self-described independents, two Democrats and one Republican — were conducted by messaging and market research firms Engagious and Sago as part of the Swing Voter Project. NPR is a partner on the project.

Rich Thau, president of Engagious, moderated the focus groups. He has been asking voters in key states about this conflict since March. And he said voters have been consistent.

“They were never on board,” Thau said. “Not the beginning. Not in the middle. And as we just learned, not at the end either, judging from what we heard from Wisconsin swing voters.”

Sam M., a 30-year-old independent, said from what he read about the deal, it wasn’t leaving the U.S. in a better position than before the war. In fact, he said he thought the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration — which Trump backed out of — was a better deal for the United States.



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President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody

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President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody


A federal judge has ordered the release of the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, after finding that immigration officials probably detained him in retaliation against his public advocacy for Palestinian rights, suppressing his first amendment rights in the process.

The US district judge James Patrick Hanlon’s order on Thursday marked a sharp rebuke against Trump officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who had tried to paint Salah Sarsour as a national security threat.

“Salah Sarsour, who has lived in this country for more than three decades and served as a core pillar in his community without any issues, should never have been detained in the first place,” his legal team wrote in a statement. “While we continue to fight these baseless claims in court, today is about celebrating a family being reunited. It is also a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk.”

Sarsour describes himself as a stateless Palestinian, according to the order. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that he is a Jordanian citizen. He has lived in the United States for more than three decades, becoming a legal permanent resident in 1998. Immigration officials approved Sarsour’s citizenship application decades ago, though he did not naturalize.

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Sarsour has garnered public attention as a champion for Palestinian rights, and serves as a board member of an advocacy group called American Muslims for Palestine.

But Rubio personally signed off on a memo to the DHS last year describing Sarsour as deportable despite his green card, because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”. The memo, cited in Hanlon’s order, accuses Sarsour’s group of being “found to have been involved in activities providing funds to Hamas”.

A group of plainclothes ICE officers from at least 10 unmarked vehicles swarmed Sarsour on 30 March of this year, arresting him and putting him in deportation proceedings. ICE ultimately detained him in Clay county jail in Indiana.

Sarsour lost 30lb while detained, the order says. His lawyers told the court that he was “at constant risk of developing serious complications from diabetes given that the medical staff only checks his blood-sugar levels once a month”. Tightly controlling diabetes typically requires multiple glucose checks daily.

Hanlon’s order says that homeland security officials and Rubio probably trampled on Sarsour’s first amendment right to free speech and appeared to have arrested him in retaliation for his Palestinian rights advocacy.

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The order cited a New York Times story and the website for the Heritage Foundation, the conservative thinktank that dreamed up Project 2025,

The Heritage Foundation presented the White House with the idea to present prominent foreign-born Muslims and Palestinian rights leaders as terrorists in order to sue them, deport them or pressure employers to fire them, the order says, citing reporting from the Times and Heritage’s own website. Sarsour was probably among the targets of that campaign, the order says.

The federal government, through its lawyers, contended that Sarsour should be deported based on two convictions from more than three decades ago in Israel – one for throwing a molotov cocktail and the other for attempting to store weapons and ammunition.

Sarsour denies having committed those crimes.

But Hanlon viewed those crimes as a non-issue for justifying his incarceration, noting that the federal government knew about them since the 1990s and approved his legal permanent residency and his citizenship application anyway.

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Sarsour’s speech on Palestinian rights “is core political speech and squarely within the scope of the First Amendment”, the order says. “Mr Sarsour has submitted evidence allowing a reasonable inference that his protected speech was ‘at least a motivating factor’ in Respondents’ decision to detain him.”

A spokesperson for homeland security described Sarsour as a “terrorist”, citing the convictions from his youth in Israel.

Government lawyers had argued that Sarsour did not have the same first amendment rights as US citizens. If he were released, they said, he should have to pay a $25,000 bond, wear an ankle monitor, check in routinely with ICE and remain confined to his house.

Instead, Hanlon ordered his release on personal recognizance, meaning that Sarsour does not have to pay a cash bond to compel him to show up in court again. The order, however, requires him to remain in the state of Wisconsin.



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