BearTalk

Former Cal star Scott Fujita knows how to make an exit.

Fujita announced his retirement from the NFL on Monday after first signing a one-day contract with the New Orleans Saints, the team he helped win Super Bowl XLIV.

And he did the final paperwork from one of the world’s most spectacular settings. Check it out:

Do you remember John Tuggle?

Bill Parcells will never forget him.

Tuggle played on Joe Kapp’s first team at Cal, a senior in the fall of 1982. He was the last player selected in the ’83 NFL draft, taken by Parcells, a rookie head coach with the New York Giants.

If you don’t mind fighting some emotions, check out ESPN’s latest 30 For 30 Short Film: The Irrelevant Giant, by Shaun Silva and Don Lepore. Very nice work.

If Tyre Ellison is a football household name, it’s only in his family’s San Francisco household.

He spent five seasons on the Cal football team and never earned a starting assignment. Until now, his biggest football moment may have been deflecting a two-point conversion pass to clinch his team’s win in the 2012 Cal spring game.

But on Wednesday afternoon, Ellison was among more than 50 recent college football seniors who showed off their stuff in front of the 49ers coaching staff at the club’s local pro day in Santa Clara.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Ellison said, “but it’s still football at the end of the day.”

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Former Cal quarterback Zach Maynard said half-brother and first-round NFL draft hopeful Keenan Allen is coping well, despite an ESPN report this week that his drug test at the combine was red-flagged.

“He’s not down at all,” Maynard said Wednesday after participating in the 49ers’ local pro day in Santa Clara. “I guess he was over-hydrated — that’s what they said about it. I don’t know what they’re going to do about it.”

Allen’s agent, J.T. Johnson, maintains the ESPN report is incorrect.

Twelve former Cal players participated in Wednesday’s event, but Allen was not among them. Neither were center Brian Schwenke and defensive back Marc Anthony,

Maynard said he’s not sure what happened in Allen’s situation, but suggested the test could have been faulty.

“It can happen to anybody. I tell him not to get down on himself because he had an amazing pro day,” Maynard said. “The guy’s a high-caliber athlete. He knows what he can do. There’s down times for everybody but he can pull himself out of it.”

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Keenan Allen won’t be there, but there will be a significant Cal presence Wednesday at the 49ers’ local pro day workout in Santa Clara.

Allen’s agent told me the wide receiver won’t be in the Bay Area on Wednesday.

Here’s a rundown of former Cal players expected to show their stuff to the 49ers: RB C.J. Anderson, CB Marc Anthony, DB Josh Hill, QB Zach Maynard, DL Kendrick Payne, C Brian Schwenke, RB Isi Sofele, FB Eric Stevens, G Matt Summers-Gavin, DT Aaron Tipoti, CB Steve Williams.

Clouds continue to gather over the NFL draft status of former Cal wide receiver Keenan Allen after ESPN.com reported Tuesday that his drug test at the combine was red-flagged.

Allen’s agent insists the story is wrong.

“We have received no notification about anything abnormal to his test. No team has requested a retest. Nobody,” said J.T. Johnson, adding that he first got wind of this when a reporter called him last Friday.

One thing is clear: Allen, once the consensus top prospect at his position, no longer is a sure thing to go in the draft’s first round on April 25.

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Former Cal star Keenan Allen was red-flagged for a drug test at the NFL combine in Indianapolis and ordered to undergo another test, according to a report by ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter.

Allen’s agent, J.T. Johnson, denied the wide receiver failed a drug test.

Results of Allen’s subsequent test are unknown.

Once rated the top wide receiver in this draft class, Allen’s stock has slipped some as he has rehabbed a knee injury he sustained late last season. He was clocked at 4.71 and 4.75 seconds for the 40-yard dash at a private workout he held for scouts last week in North Carolina.

He still is projected as a late first-round or early second-round pick on most NFL mock drafts.

Guard Layshia Clarendon, who led Cal to its first women’s Final Four appearance, was chosen No. 9 by the defending champion Indiana Fever in the WNBA draft.

Clarendon was a two-time all-Pac-12 selection and helped the Bears to their first conference title. She is considered a strong leader and good defender with an effective mid-range scoring game.

Clarendon became the highest-drafted Cal player and just the third Golden Bear to be drafted by the league, following in the footsteps of Ashley Walker (2009, No. 12 in 2009) and Alexis Gray-Lawson (No. 30 in 2010).

 “It’s exciting (to play for Indiana),” Clarendon said. “I’ve always been a part of underdog teams and now I’m a defending champion by default. I’m excited to play with my fellow Pac-10/Pac-12 sisters (Briann) January and Jeannette Pohlen.”

As expected, the top three selections in the WNBA draft were Baylor’s Brittney Griner (Phoenix), Delaware’s Elena Delle Donne (Chicago) and Notre Dame’s Skylar Diggins (Tulsa).

Green Bay Packers teammate A.J. Hawk believes quarterback Aaron Rodgers may get a $1 billion contact — and the star linebacker says the 29-year-old ex-Cal star is worth it.

“Let’s be honest, all of us minions have nothing that we can offer Aaron that would even come close to anything that he would get,” Hawk told the NFL Network.

“He deserves every dime he’s going to get. He’s going to get a billion dollars, probably, so I’m OK with anything they want to give him, because he’s one of the best in the world and he deserves everything.”

Rodgers and the Packers are reportedly working on a new deal that league sources believe will earn him $25 million per season and make him the highest-paid player in NFL history.

Joe Flacco became the NFL’s highest-paid player last month when he signed a six-year, $120.6 million contract with the reigning champion Baltimore Ravens.

Rodgers is under contract through 2014, having signed a six-year, $65 million contract in October 2008. Rodgers’ base salary in 2013 is $9.25 million, while his 2014 deal is worth $10.5 million.

Rodgers passed for 4,295 yards and 39 touchdowns last season while leading the Packers to their fourth consecutive playoff appearance.

Former Cal star Keenan Allen’s first 40-yard dash runs for NFL scouts on Tuesday produced less than awe-inspiring times. The question is: Will it matter much to NFL teams?

Allen was clocked in 4.71 and 4.75 seconds by Mike Mayock of the NFL Network, according to NFL.com, at Proehlific Park in Greensboro, N.C.  

The wide receiver held his own pro day workout for about 30 NFL scouts after bypassing both the NFL Combine and Cal’s Pro Day while recovering from a knee injury he suffered during the 2012 season and reinjured in January while training for the combine. Allen recently told the Sacramento Bee that he’s only about 85 percent back.

He also showed his route-running skills to scouts, with former NFL wideout Ricky Proehl — owner of the workout facility — throwing him passes. According to a report on SBNation, a scout from the Cincinnati Bengals remarked of Allen, “He did an awesome job.”

Allen has been a projected first-round pick in the 2013 NFL Draft, although his stock seemingly has slipped a bit from the upper to middle range of the first round to perhaps later.

The 2013 NFL Draft will take place April 25-27 at Radio Music City Hall in New York City.