Alameda High School (AHS) alum Keelan Doss signed a contract on Sunday, Sept. 1, to join the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League (NFL). 

Doss, 23, decided to join the club’s practice squad. Players on the practice squad do not play in actual games. They only participate in practice with their respective teams. Practice squad players can only be upgraded to the team’s active roster — players that participate in games — if the team releases a player or an active-roster player suffers a season-ending injury and is placed on injured reserve. 

Doss, who graduated from AHS in 2014, was released by the Oakland Raiders on Saturday, Aug. 31. Doss signed with the Raiders after going undrafted in the 2019 NFL Draft. He played in all four preseason games with the club. In his four games Doss, a wide receiver, accumulated 17 pass receptions for 162 yards and scored a touchdown.  

Doss was also featured on the popular Hard Knocks television series on HBO that documents one team’s preseason. This year the Oakland Raiders were selected to be documented.

Each NFL team is allowed to have a preseason roster of 90 players. However, each team must trim their roster to 53 players before the start of the regular season. So each team had to cut 37 players before the cut deadline the Sunday before the regular season’s first week. Doss was part of those cuts. Once a player is cut, a team is allowed to resign the player to their practice squad if no other team signs them to their active roster. However, released players can sign to another team’s practice squad if they want. 

Several reports said the Raiders were looking into resigning the Alameda native Doss to their practice squad. However, Doss chose to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Details of Doss’ contract were not disclosed.   

After Doss graduated from AHS he played collegiately at UC Davis. As a redshirt junior he finished third in voting for the Walter Payton Award given to the top offensive player in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). He was also named to FCS first team. He finished the 2017 season with 1,499 receiving yards, 115 receptions and nine 100-yard games, all school records. He also scored seven touchdowns. 

As a senior he caught 118 receptions for 1,334 yards and nine touchdowns in 13 games.

The Jacksonville Jaguars begin the 2019 season Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.