INDIANAPOLIS — Josh Allen stood on an elevated stage Friday and peered over a ballroom filled to the brim with 38,000 square feet of irony.
When Allen was a scrawny, 6-foot-2 quarterback at Firebaugh High School, located in a two-spotlight town in California’s central valley, he and his father, Joel, and his high school coach, Bill Magnusson, used to plead for eyeballs.
“I was begging teams for a scholarship,” Allen said.
The group would send film of Allen’s games in mass quantities to the email addresses of any college coaches they could find, but the quarterback’s inbox would receive only crickets in return.