Allan Lazard

This podcast episode discusses the career of Alan Lazard, a wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers. Lazard had a successful high school career and went on to play for Iowa State in college. He had a solid college career and entered the NFL draft in 2018. He was not selected until the 7th round and initially played for the Jacksonville Jaguars before joining the Packers. Lazard has shown improvement in his receiving yards and touchdowns each season with the Packers. However, he is now an unrestricted free agent and is looking for a new contract. The Packers may not be able to offer him the amount of money he wants due to salary cap constraints. Lazard is considering other teams such as the Bears, Patriots, and Colts. The podcast host also mentions creating a Facebook page for fans to connect and discuss football. Welcome to THV Podcast. I'm your host, Tony. And today we'll be talking about the number 13, Alan Lazard from the Green Bay Packers. And in case you guys don't know who Alan Lazard is, Alan Lazard is from Iowa, who went to Iowa State in college. But before college, Alan Lazard was a top 10 prospect wide receiver in high school. He had an amazing career in high school, and he was pretty much going to be one of the top guys that was going to go to a great team like LSU, Alabama, Ohio State, or any teams out there that really utilize the wide receiver position. But throughout those struggles, throughout those successfulness he had, he went to Iowa State, where his dad went to Iowa State before. So he wanted to continue his father's legacy, and to continue that he is one of the best receivers in Iowa State, and that's where he went. During his freshman year in Iowa State, he had about 593 receiving yards and 3 touchdowns. In 2015, he had 808 yards and 6 touchdowns. So improving from 303 touchdowns, not too bad for that guy. And in 2016, he had about 1,018 receiving yards and 7 touchdowns, which was one of his breakout seasons of the year. And after that in 2017, he had 941 yards and 10 touchdowns. He improved with the receiving and the touchdowns, but lowered his receiving. But that's not too bad for him as a college prospect. But just know that Iowa State is not one of the best colleges to make receivers, and they're not really good at pretty much making any good players for the draft. So in 2018, Alazar went into the draft, and everything that he thought was going to be amazing, that he was going to be at least a 3rd rounder, or maybe a 4th round. But throughout the draft, he got dropped. And he dropped and dropped and dropped to the 7th pick. But guess what? He dropped again. He was then drafted by a receiver, and until then, the Jaguars picked him up and called, hey, you know, we're going to need 8 guys. Some of you guys can help out. Do you want to come play with us? And he did it for that one year. After that, he was let go during the midseason in the practice squad. Next season later, the Packers picked up Alazar, and Alazar had 477 receiving yards and 3 touchdowns. The next season, that's in 2020, he had 451 receiving yards and 3 touchdowns. In 2021, he had 515 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns. So improving from receiving yards and also improving in touchdown receptions, which is great for him. In 2022, he had 788 receiving yards and 6 receiving touchdowns. So throughout his career, you would have thought that Alazar could have been a good 2nd wide receiver guy. And yes, that is true. He could have been. He is probably one of the best secondary, or like a 2nd string wide receiver for any team out there. And that's what I believe in. And if he wants to be the number one guy, he's going to have to step up with better stats. So in case you guys didn't know, Alazar is on his last contract with the Green Bay Packers. And he is an unrestricted free agent, meaning that he can go to any team where he wants to go. And according to PFF, he is projected to make at least $11 million in his next contract. And honestly, that's not too bad. I believe that before that, he wanted more, and he wanted about $17 million. And that would put him at least a little bit high as Christian Kirk, who is getting paid $18 million. And that's just that Alazar also wants a $21.5 million guaranteed. So now the question is, does he deserve that much amount of money in Green Bay? I believe Green Bay are going to reject that. I believe Green Bay right now are in a really bad cash space with all their players. And they have to pay a lot of players, like Aaron Jones, Aaron Rodgers, Jay Alexander, David Batyari, and pretty much any players that are very elite in their position. And also, in the NFL rankings, just rankings for him, he is ranked about 160. For what receiver-wise, he is ranked number 28th. Which isn't too bad, honestly. 28th is better than, I guess, 30. Because you're taking it too away. But compared to most receivers, like Christian Watson and NBS, could be better than him. And that's the thing that the Packers are looking at. It's like, hey, should we resign you? Because your 10th is supposed to be next. It's a guy for us since the loss of Devontae Adams. And we want to see if you can perform great, but you don't have to perform like Devontae Adams. Just perform what you can do the best that you can do. And like I said before, his receiving yards, it went up, yes. And touchdowns, it went down by two, but that's fine. But the question is, how can he like the two rookie receivers out beat him? And that's the thing that he should ask himself as a player. I understand that football is a team sport. I get it. But like I said, you are pretty much, you're 27 years old. You've been with us four years. This is the system, the place. And knowing Aaron Rodgers, he will target you more than the rookies. And guess what? The rookies, they haven't played with Aaron Rodgers for so long. And you have. And this is the rookie season. And guess what? They outplayed you. And things happen like that. And it happens all the time. And now just the question is, are you going to step up and make that difference of a player or make a difference of yourself as a player? So now a lot of people are asking, is he going to stay or is he going to go? And he told the reporters that he is very questionable where he wants to go and questionable if he wants to stay. And if the Packers give him the money, amount of money he wants, then he will stay. If not, then he'll go somewhere else. And there's three teams that are very interested and able to sign Anne Lazard. And number three is the Bears. The Bears has been looking for their wide receivers since the trade of Chase Claypool. And so adding Anne Lazard to that roster really helps a lot because you know, you had Darnell Mooney, you had Chase Claypool, and you have Anne Lazard. Pretty much your three main receivers for Justin Fields. But at the same time, the Bears do have the first-round pick. They can do a lot with that pick. They could trade for a player or they could trade for an elite wide receiver. But more of that will go towards the draft. And I will be making my own mock draft here and give you guys my perspective and who's going to trade for who and who's going to draft who. So that will be till later. So number two is the Patriots. The Patriots has been looking for a number one wide receiver for a long time since Antonio Brown, right? You guys remember when Antonio Brown used to play for the Patriots when Tom Brady was there? So they don't have a lot of players there like Nikhil Hari, Dan Nelson-Aguinor. They don't have really a lot of wide receivers there that are the number one. So that could be another number one spot that he could go to. The Patriots may pay him a little bit more money depending. And also the Bears too. The Bears has a lot of money too. But yeah, the Patriots could be the next thing that he could go to. And number one here, I have the Colts. Yes, adding Anne Lazard to the Colts would be another key player if you think about it because you have Michael Pittman who is basically the number one guy. And adding Anne Lazard, you know, just adding more weapons to that team. And that will make the Colts a little bit better and all they have to do is find their quarterback, give him the receiver that he needs, give him the protection. And they already have a running back in John Taylor. So that's going to be amazing for them. So honestly, that's the three teams that he could possibly go to. So I guess we'll see from here. If you guys have any suggestions on where he could go, comment down below and give me your opinions. So that's all I got for this video today about Anne Lazard. And also if you guys didn't know the news, I created my own Facebook page. If you guys could just follow and like it, it would be amazing. I want to create a great community to speak with my fans or friends or family and kind of have a great communication about football. And there will be more people joining, of course, down the road. But as of now, I want to start small and start creating more videos for everyone. So I'm your host Tony, Go Pack Go, and see you guys on the next episode of my podcast.