Washington D.C. area Journalist and Author Mike Richman shares the story of Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach George Allen in a book titled George Allen: A Football Life.
-Transcribed Mike Richman on George Allen
Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome once again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome to another edition where we get to talk about a great legend of the game of football.
And this is coming from the professional level, pretty much. And we have our friend Mike Richmond here. He has a book on George Allen called George Allen, A Football Life.
Mike, welcome back to The Pig Pen. Great to be here, Darren. Yeah, Mike, George Allen, a very interesting figure indeed.
You know, back in the '60s and '70s was his era. And just just an interesting guy all around. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about George's background before he got to what we know him as, you know, with the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins, maybe how he got up through the ranks of professional football.
Sure. Well, I can start with his college coaching. His very, very first coaching job was at the University of Michigan.
He was a graduate student at Michigan, has both his bachelor's and graduate degrees from Michigan. And he got a job as an assistant coach on the 150-pound midget team, which started for the first time in 1948. It was a four-team league in the Midwest, Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Indiana, I believe.
Those were the four schools. And so he was an assistant coach for that one season, and he was in 1947, he was an assistant coach on that team. Then, in 1948, the following year, he got his first true head coaching job at Morningside College in Iowa.
That's how he broke into the head coaching ranks. He coached in college through 1956. He was three years at Morningside, and then he coached for six years at Whittier in the Los Angeles area.
And he had a plus 500 record over that nine-year period, but he left after the 1956 season. Some of the players were kind of disenchanted with him, his conservative style offense, they didn't really appreciate. Also, the school administration didn't really appreciate some of the approaches that he took with his coaching, his recruiting, his scholarships that he was handing out, he was spending too much money, they thought.
So basically, as I wrote in the book, he was forced to resign after the 56 season. 57, he was an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Rams, interestingly, as an offensive ends coach. Sid Gillman was the head coach at the time, and I wondered why they hired him as an offensive ends coach, because he was a defensive oriented coach.
And I believe it was, and actually, I got to interview his daughter about this, and it's because he knew the tendencies of the opposing defense. So that's why they hired him as the offensive ends coach. But again, he was basically forced out after the 57 season.
He was out of coaching for almost the entire 58 seasons. But the Bears brought him in as a spy toward the end of the season. They had two games against the Los Angeles Rams toward the end of the season.
So George Hallis brought him in as a spy. And then Hallis became, to admire him, the head talent scout for the Bears at the time passed away. So Hallis hired him as the Bears head talent scout in 1959.
That's how he got in with the Bears. He was with the Bears through the 65 season. It was a very memorable period because he was, he drafted, he was leading the draft at the time.
He drafted three future Hall of Fame players, Mike Ditka, in 1961. The 1965 draft has to go down as one of the greatest drafts in NFL history. He drafted Butkus with the number three pick in the first round.
Sayers, the following pick, number four. In that top 10 of picks, he drafted Steve DeLong with number eight in offensive tackle. DeLong didn't play for the Bears.
He went to play for the San Diego, San Diego Chargers in the AFL. And he was a single one-time pro bowler with the Chargers. In the fourth round, the Bears drafted a running back named Jim Nance, who went on to play for the Boston Patriots in the AFL.
He was a two-time pro bowler and a two-time All-Pro in the AFL. If DeLong and Nance actually had come to play for the Bears, I mean, that would have made that draft like, you would have had to put it up against the 74 Steelers draft. You could probably still put it up there with Butkus and Sayers and so forth.
But yes, so he was the head talent scout for that whole period. He was elevated to the head defensive coach in 1960. Well, in 1962, he replaced Clark Shaughnessy toward the end of the season.
Shaughnessy was on the outs with Hallis as the defensive coach, and Shaughnessy held a few other roles. And so Allen took over as the head defensive coach at that time. And then heading into the 1963 season, he was elevated to the head defensive coach for the Bears.
And that season, the Bears won the NFL championship. They won it with one of the most ferocious defenses in NFL history. And Allen was the key architect of that win.
I mean, they yielded only about 144 points through the regular season. And so Allen was carried off the field after the game, by the way. Hallis was not carried off the field.
Allen was also, they were both given game balls. But in the postgame locker room, they also chanted in, and this had been initiated several years prior by another Bears player. Hooray for George.
He's a horse's ass. That song the Redskins also sang it in later years when Allen became the coach there. But I want to read you a quote by Ed Obradovich, who was a great Bears defensive tackle at the time, in terms of how he credited George Allen with that championship win.
And Obradovich has no doubt who engineered the victory in that championship game was a 14 to 10 win over the Giants. Obradovich says, in my mind, everything goes to George Allen. We scored two touchdowns, both on quarterback sneaks.
Our offense didn't move that well. That defense proved without a doubt that you can win a world championship with defense. So Allen was the key architect of that win.
And not only in the mind of Obradovich, but many of the other Bears players thought the same thing. But Hallis never, Halas refused to promote him to head coach. Hallis, you know, he had been around for so many years.
As you know, he was part of the initial meeting in Canton that formed the NFL in 1920. So he had been there for so many years. He refused to step down after the 1963 season.
A few years went by, 1965, Allen was getting antsy. He wanted that head coaching job. So he got the offer from the Los Angeles Rams.
Dan Reeves, the Rams owner, offered him the job. Hallis still refused to step down. Instead, he took George Allen to court at the Cook County Circuit Court in the Chicago area.
He sued him for breach of contract. He said that Allen had this proprietary information that he would be taking to the Rams and that Halas didn't; he refused to let him go. So, the judge eventually ruled for Hallis in the case.
Hallis, though, said at that point, I've made my point. I've won on principle. George Allen, you're free to go to any team you want.
So Allen chose the Los Angeles Rams. But Hallis made himself look like a petulant child in that whole case. And, you know, having taken him to court.
I mean, when an assistant coach, despite what's written in a contract, wants a job as a head coach with another team, you've got to let him go. I mean, Hallis was just, I think he was jealous of George Allen, and he may have had it in his mind that he would promote him in future years, but he refused to do it at that point. But anyway, he let Allen go on to become the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams starting in the 1966 season.
Wow, that's a lot. I didn't realize he had that much involvement with the Bears. I knew he was there, but I didn't realize, you know, he was orchestrated, you know, that great defense and, you know, help with those great draft picks.
You know, I always find it interesting, you know, that Gail Sayers and Dick Butkis's draft. I think, isn't it the saying that the two of them on the same team, the Bears, never won a playoff game or never made a playoff game? That's correct. They never made a playoff game with either one of those guys on the same team.
And both of them, their careers were short and considerably, you would think they could have played longer, but they had terrible injuries. So both of them were pretty much in their prime when they retired, but they were also both first-ballot Hall of Fame inductees and were drafted with back-to-back picks in the first round in 1965. And then they were first-ballot Hall of Famers.
And so just that in itself makes that draft so amazing. But then you add DeLong and Nance, those two other guys that I mentioned in that draft, you add those two in. Another signing that George Allen orchestrated that year was a free agent signing of a guy named Brian Piccolo, the leading rusher in the country out of Wake Forest.
And Piccolo, sort of what he was portrayed as in the movie, had a couple of good seasons with the Bears. In fact, 1968 was his best season rushing. I think he rushed for more than 400 yards that year.
He was tapped, heading into the 1969 season, to be the starter in the backfield with Sayers. I remember that in the movie Sayers and Piccolo, they exchanged high fives. And, you know, I say, hey, you know, we're going to start in the backfield together.
But it was that year that Piccolo took himself out of a game because he wasn't feeling right. And, you know, so I guess the cancer was starting to spread at that point. Yeah, I had the; when I was in high school in the 80s, I read the book I Am Third, you know, which the Brian Piccolo movie was adapted from Gail Sayers's book, I Am Third.
And probably probably within a month or two after me reading it, and I had no idea it was going to happen. I was working at a restaurant here where I live in Erie as a busboy. And lo and behold, I go to the table to clean it up.
I look up, and I see a familiar face. Gail Sayers is sitting there with some dignitaries from all over Erie, Pennsylvania. He had come in for a sports banquet, which I didn't know. I wasn't aware that he was coming in.
I got to have a conversation about it. I told him, I said, hey, I just got done reading your book. I did a book report on it.
And he was the kindest man. He sat down, you know, some busboy at a restaurant in a strange town. He sat with me for five minutes, had a conversation, and gave me some, you know, worldly advice, as you'd expect from an older Gail Sayers.
And it's when a great, great guy. So I'm a big Gail Sayers fan just because of the person he is. I never got to watch him play, but, you know, other than film.
But yeah, he's tremendous. I can't imagine you got his autograph, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
You know, Butkus, as a kid for me. Butkus was my, the player that I really, really looked up to. I saw I saw myself in him.
I didn't play anything past high school football. But I just saw his ferociousness and, you know, that other players were so scared of him and just, you know, his stature on the field. I just loved him.
And I wrote to the Bears, I remember. It must have been like the early 70s. And he sent me a baseball card.
Nice. I signed it; I signed it to Dick Butkus. There are just two great iconic figures of NFL history that, you know, from 60 to some years ago in the draft and playing, and we're still talking about, they're still relevant to even the modern fan.
That tells you, in shortened careers, that just tells you how legendary they were, just to emphasize how good that draft was for the Bears. So, yeah, it's pretty amazing that George Allen was able to see the talent in those two and help get those two players on the Bears. I'll tell you one other Butkus story.
So in 1974, Allen wanted to get him for the Redskins. Butkus had his contract expire with the Bears, or I think they either released him or he walked after the 73 season. But so Allen tried to acquire him for the Redskins, but his knees were in such bad shape that he could never, he couldn't play football after that.
73 was his last year in the NFL. He went to see a doctor in the Midwest, I think in Oklahoma, who said, hey, you know, if you want to have your knees fused, then maybe you'll be able to get on the field. But he could not play football anymore.
And Sears had to step down. He was pretty much in his prime as well. But you, I mean, I'm sure you've seen tapes of him and how elusive and fast he was.
Oh, yeah. So, yeah, most definitely. Yeah, YouTube's an amazing thing.
So it's good to go see anything you have film on anybody. You can go back and watch them. That's awesome.
Okay, so George Allen takes over the reins of the Rams program. So tell us a little bit about what he did to the Rams, what he instilled in their program. Sure.
Well, when he came in 1966, the Rams in previous years, like over the past, I'd say eight seasons, they were about bad to mediocre. I mean, they were really a struggling team. And so they needed a lot of rebuilding when he came.
And he, what he did is he, his practices were much longer than the previous coaches. They had also this kind of arty image as a team, you know, being in Los Angeles, lots of stuff to do. They loved the nightlife there and they ran the streets really well.
So he, George Allen got rid of all that. I mean, he was a disciplinarian, long practices in the Southern California heat. So he instilled that hard work ethic in them and they started winning right away.
They had eight and six seasons in 1966. 1967, in my opinion, was his best season as an NFL coach. They finished 11-2-1 in the regular season.
They lost to the Packers in the first round of the playoffs that year, and the week after that was the Ice Bowl. Those were also the years when the teams rotated as host cities. So even though the Packers finished 9-4-1 that year in their division and the Rams 11-2-1, the Rams had to go to Green Bay and play.
Now, I'm not saying that the Rams had gone to Green Bay to play them. They would have won that game. I mean, they were coming off two emotionally draining games at the end of that 67 season.
They beat the Packers in the final seconds in the Los Angeles Coliseum. A player named Tony Guillory blocked a punt with about a minute left in that game and the Rams recovered and ran down the five-yard line and then Roman Gabriel threw a touchdown pass to a receiver named Bernie Casey, later the actor. And so the Rams won that game.
Allen was carried off the field after that one. The following week, they demolished the Baltimore Colts, and Unitas was sacked about seven times during that game. The Rams were so sky-high to play the Colts.
That was in the LA Coliseum as well. They beat the Colts and that got them into the playoffs. They won the Coastal Division.
Interestingly, the Colts were also in that Coastal Division. But one thing I want to note about that Colts team. They also finished 11-1-2 that year.
The Rams were 11-1-2. The Colts also were 11-1-2 that year. That Colts team didn't go to the playoffs.
That's unfathomable today. That just would not happen. We have losing teams going to the playoffs, seven teams per conference.
Just back then, there were four total teams in the NFL that went to the postseason, and one from each division. So that Colts team didn't go. So you can imagine how good they really were.
But that Rams team lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Packers. They were knocked out. The following year was a 10-3-1 season.
The Rams didn't go to the playoffs. After that season, which was 1968, after the season, Dan Reeves fired George Allen. He had a phenomenal record in those first three years.
Reeves fired him. Reeves didn't like, number one, his spending habits. His spending habits came into play again.
He was spending a lot of money for the veteran players. He was on the phone a lot. Back in those days, you know, he was driving up telephone costs.
And the two just, they had like such differing personalities. Reeves was this partying guy. I mentioned the partying aspect of the Rams in years past.
Reeves was leading the charge. Everyone knew he was an alcoholic, and there were coaches who loved to drink as well. And so Reeves was leading that.
George Allen was not. He didn't drink alcoholic beverages. His favorite beverage was milk.
That's what he consumed. So he and Reeves didn't socialize, and they rarely spoke to each other. Reeves didn't like him.
I thought it was another case of jealousy, too. Reeves fired him after the 68 season. Allen, though, staged a press conference at a ritzy Los Angeles Hotel, and about 20 veteran Ram players showed up.
Merlin Olson, Deacon Jones, Ed Meador. Let's see. I think Rosie Greer was there.
So at this press conference, these veteran Ram players said, and you know, they had experienced, they had been a winner under Allen in those first three seasons. They said, you know, if Dan Reeves if you don't rehire George Allen, we're quitting. So several weeks later, Reeves rehired Allen.
Now, he said that it had nothing to do with what the player said at that point. But I think what the player said had a lot to do with it. I mean, you read between the lines.
I mean, if he was going to lose those veteran players, they weren't going to have much of a team. If you have the fearsome foursome on your side coming in to speak on your behalf, people are going to listen to those guys. I think Lamar Lundy was another one of those players.
No, I don't think Greer was there. I think he had already retired, but Lundy was there. And they were like a total of 20 veteran Rams.
And yeah, they basically said, we're going to retire if you don't rehire George Allen. So, this had to be an unprecedented situation in NFL history at the time. So yeah, Reeves rehired him after the 68 season.
69 and 70, which those were Allen's last two years. 69, they went 11-3. Again, they were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs to a really good Vikings team that later played in Super Bowl 4, losing to the Chiefs.
And then in 1970, they finished 9-4-1. And Reeves fired him for the second time. I want to say about that 69 team.
So the Rams started 11-0, 11-0 that year. And they lost their last three regular season games and then went into the playoffs and lost to the Vikings. They gave the Vikings a fight in that first round playoff game.
They lost 23-20 in Minnesota. But one of the knocks on George Allen over the years is that he worked his players so hard during the regular season, and he was such a great motivator getting them up for games, and you know, with his rah-rah personality that they were basically burned out toward the end of that 69 seasons and they lost their last three regular-season games because I don't remember him sitting too many of his veteran players in that first loss, which I think was to the Bears, if I'm correct, or to either the Bears or the Vikings. I don't remember him really sitting his players, you know, basically rolling over.
I don't recall him doing that early in that losing streak, but they lost those last three games and then went into the playoffs on that losing streak with an 11-3 record. It's 1970. Pretty much everyone knew that if Allen didn't make the Super Bowl that year that he was going to be fired, and certainly Reeves fired him after that season, and that's when he was hired by the Redskins a few weeks later.
So it was sort of, it happened more than once where he had some great starts, you know, great out of the gate, but the team was just worn down by the end of the season, sort of collapsed at the end of the season in the playoffs. Yes, pretty much. So, I mean that the 11-1-2 team in 1967, they were just, even I quoted Merlin Olsen in the book as saying that they were just emotionally drained by the time they got to the playoffs, and even Allen said that in a quote that I found from the past that there's no way that we would have beaten Green Bay in that playoff game.
They actually took a 7-0 lead in that game, but Green Bay Lombardi had kind of disguised his plans before the game. He said we're not going to be able to run the ball. You know, several of our running backs are out injured, but certainly, they rammed it down the Rams' throats in that playoff game.
I mean, they really ran the ball well. So, and then in that 69 season, like I said, they started at 11-0, and they lost their last three games. That was one of the knocks on George Allen over the years; he got his players motivated for most of the regular season, and then they just ran out of steam toward the end.
Yeah, that's just amazing. You would think in this day and age, you know, if a coach has tremendous records like that, even if he's not winning, you know, except for maybe somebody, you know, like Marty Schottenheimer, who sort of had a similar situation happen to Allen, but you would never let that coach go if they were winning year after year, you know, they're hard to find to get coaches that can keep teams like that. But, you know, I guess that's a different era, you know.
Right. Well, I think if Allen were coaching today, the owners would keep him on. I think that it was more of a personality conflict unless he didn't get along with the owners today, but I think it was with Reeves.
It was very much a personality conflict. I mean, the two just didn't see eye to eye. One thing that really bothered Reeves is that Reeves controlled the draft.
Reeves was known as this expert on scouting in the NFL, and actually George Allen did inherit a few really good players that Reeves and his scouting team had found before he arrived, Merlin Olson, Deacon Jones, Roman Gabriel. There were other players, Ed Meador. I mean, there were some pretty good talent on that Rams team when Allen arrived.
But as you clearly know, I mean, you need a coach to get that chemistry together and organize everything and, you know, nail down the right X's and O's that a team must be following. It is just that you need the right coach to lead at that point. They just didn't have the right coaches beforehand.
So, but yeah, he and Reeves just had this personality conflict. So Reeves controlled the draft. Allen had control of the active player roster.
One thing that bothered Reeves was that he really liked a quarterback named Bill Munson. He was Roman Gabriel's backup, but Allen got rid of him.
Okay, Allen traded him, but Reeves really liked him. Allen traded him. Allen also traded the Heisman Trophy winner out of UCLA, Gary Beibin. Allen didn't think Beibin was going to be much of anything.
I mean, Allen knew he was pretty much a hybrid quarterback at UCLA. He ran the ball a lot. So Allen didn't think he was going to be much of an NFL quarterback.
He traded him to the Redskins, and the Rams picked up some pretty good draft picks in that trade. Well, Reeves didn't like that trade at all. Okay, so that's, you know, one time where they really disagreed, and Reeves didn't appreciate that.
That Allen had let Beibin go, but Beibin didn't have much of a career in DC at all. I mean, he was with the Redskins for two seasons. Well, one, maybe one, two seasons, 68 and 69 probably, and then he was cut by the Redskins.
So, he didn't have much of a career at all. So Allen was right about that. So, it was very much a personality conflict between Allen and Reeves.
He's out in LA. How long is he out of a job before somebody becomes interested in his services? Just a few days. The Redskins had actually been interested in him after the 68 season.
Alan knew Jack Kent Cooke. Cooke owned the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings, and he was based in Los Angeles. So Alan knew him and Cooke, they became friends.
Cooke would invite him to his ranch in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Alan also came to know Edward Bennett Williams, who ran the daily operations of the Redskins. I should say that Cooke was inching toward becoming the majority owner of the Redskins at the time.
He held the largest percentage, and he would soon become the majority owner. So he had a lot of power on the team. Williams also liked Alan.
They had met at a league meeting in Hawaii, I believe, after the 66 season. So Williams came to really admire him. He loved his work ethic and everything.
So, pretty much Cooke went hard after George Allen after the 68 season. But Alan wanted to fulfill his five-year contract with the Rams. He said, Jack, I know I'm probably going to get fired after the 1970 season, but I want to fulfill my contract.
So, he stayed with LA through the five-year period of his contract. Cooke and Williams brought him to Washington just a few days after Reeves fired him for the second time. It was like Reeves fired him right after the 1970 season.
And the first week in January, Alan was hired as the Redskins coach. Okay. So now Alan would be, would have been Vince Lombardi's replacement, correct? Is that Lombardi or somebody in between? There was somebody in between.
Alan, I mean Lombardi coached in 69. Okay. And then he passed away right before the 1970 season.
Okay. So then there was an interim coach for the Redskins in 1970. Okay.
So he would have been the first permanent assigned coach after Vince Lombardi. Correct. He would have been the first permanent coach post Lombardi.
But Lombardi only coached one year, 69. So he has sort of adopted Beebin, who he traded then. No, Beebin was not on the team anymore.
Oh, okay. So Beeben was gone, too. Okay.
Beebin had been cut prior to the 1970 season. Yeah, the Redskins, they quickly got rid of him. He was history.
Yeah. So, no, Alan did not adopt him, but I don't think Alan would have had much of him anyway. So, Alan did inherit some pretty good players with the Redskins, too, mostly on offense.
The Redskins had a very good offense in the 1960s, led by Sonny Jurgensen, who had his best passing years with the Redskins during that time from the mid to late 60s. He also had some amazing receivers, such as Charlie Taylor, Bobby Mitchell, and Jerry Smith. One year, 1967, Jurgensen led the league in passing.
Taylor was number one in receiving in total catches. Smith was number two. And then Mitchell was number four.
And actually, Jerry Smith was a great receiving tight end. Yeah. So that was- Okay.
They had the number one, two, and four receivers in the NFL in one season. One, two, and four in total. Yes.
There were one, two, and four catches in the NFL in the same season. He had a smorgasbord of receivers to throw to. They were a very exciting team.
And it was a major reason that RFK Stadium started selling out in 1966. They were a very entertaining offensive team, but they had no defense. I mean, the defense was basically mediocre.
I mean, you could step all over that defense. They were relinquishing so many points. So, Alan inherited all of those except for Mitchell.
Mitchell retired before the 1969 season. But Alan inherited Jurgensen, Taylor, Jerry Smith. On defense, he had Chris Hamburger, who's in the Hall of Fame today.
Brigg Owens, who is very high on the list of career interception leaders today for the Redskins with 36. Very good defensive back. Bill Brundage is a really good defensive lineman.
Larry Brown is a Pittsburgh native, by the way. He was a 1,000-yard rusher in 1970. Alan inherited him.
So, again, it was a situation where the head coach had to find a way to make all that talent work and get that chemistry flowing on the team. Yeah, definitely. They're the spoon that stirs a drink there, aren't they? So, would you consider Alan, a player's coach? I know he sort of runs the hard line, but sometimes those can be somewhat of a player's coach.
So, I'm just trying to get a feel for insider information. What was he like as a head man on the sideline? I would consider him a player's coach in the sense that there were many players that liked him and appreciated his practices. Like, the players that really liked him were the players that he saved from other teams.
He traded for a lot of veteran players. They could have been on the outs with their previous teams, like Roy Jefferson was on the outs with Carroll Rosenblum, the owner of the Baltimore Colts, even though they had won a Super Bowl in 1970, Super Bowl V. Alan traded for him. Ron McDowell was on the outs with the Buffalo Bills.
Alan traded for him. Billy Kilmer, Alan resuscitated his career. Kilmer was basically a mid-range quarterback for the Saints.
He was pretty good, but, you know, he was nowhere near elite. Alan rescued his career, brought him to Washington. Alan saw something in him.
The Rams played the Saints a few times when Alan was in LA, and he really liked Kilmer. So, he resuscitated the careers of a lot of players. And even a lot of the veteran players that were here, Pat Fisher being one.
Pat Fisher really liked George Allen. Brigg Owens liked him. Owens was considered one of Alan's lieutenants on the field.
Fisher and Chris Hamburger, as well, really liked him. So, then there were other players that they didn't so much like George Allen. They felt that you know, he was a little sleazy in the way he handled personnel matters.
He didn't always tell people exactly the moves he was going to make. So, yeah, not every player loved him, but I would say a lot of the players that he, where he resuscitated their careers, would sing his praises all day. Yeah.
I guess if you go back and think about it, the LA Rams if they had 20 people showing up at his, you know, departure or what he thought was his final swan song there in LA as a press conference, and they came in support, they had to like him. So, very interesting. Okay.
So, how did his Washington teams fare? You know, he's bringing, he has this talent he inherited. He's bringing this veteran presence and talent in. So, how was he doing as a Redskins head coach? So, in 1971, his first season in Washington, the Redskins finished 9-4-1.
They went to the postseason for the first time since 1945. First time in a quarter century they went to the playoffs. It was only their fourth; let's see, they had four; I'm sorry, they had four previous winning seasons prior to Allen's arrival in 1971.
So, 1971, 9-4-1. They lost again in the first round of the playoffs to the San Francisco 49ers. They played in San Francisco the year.
The Redskins were actually up in that game. They were leading at halftime 10-3, but then they wilted in the second half. And that actually is the game of Nixon's play call.
Allen and Richard Nixon had a friendship. They originally met when Allen was the college coach at Whittier in the early 50s. They met at an NCAA banquet.
Nixon's alma mater was Whittier. So, that's when they first met. So, when they intersected in the nation's capital in 1971, Nixon was in his third year in the White House and Allen's first-year coach of the Redskins.
And actually, that season, Allen Nixon came out to Redskins Park, the Redskins training facility, and he gave the Redskins a pep talk. He wanted to come out. The Redskins were struggling a little bit that year.
They, in their previous three games, they had a tie and two losses. So, he came out to Redskins Park, he gave them a pep talk. And then, by the time they played the 49ers in the first round of the playoffs that year, the Redskins used a play that Nixon had suggested he would like to see them running.
It was an end-around play to Roy Jefferson. He unfortunately got caught for a 10-yard loss on the play, knocked the Redskins back. They missed the field goal attempt, and they went into halftime at 10-3.
They could have been up 17-3 or at least 13-3, but they went up 10-3; they were demoralized. They relinquished the lead in the second half and lost that game. The following year, 1972, Allen took the Redskins to their first Super Bowl, Super Bowl VII.
They lost in that game to the Miami Dolphins, who finished that season undefeated at 17-0. They lost 14-7 in that game. In the two playoff games that the Redskins were in prior to the Super Bowl, they beat the Green Bay Packers in the first round, and they beat the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship game.
I was at both games, both of those games at RFK Stadium. The win over the Cowboys, 26-3 in the NFC Championship game that year, was just a total demolition job by the Redskins. I mean, that was Allen's crowning moment as head coach in the NFL.
The fact that he didn't win the Super Bowl the next week and then never got past the first round of the playoffs again, that NFC Championship game was his crowning moment. He not only won the NFC Championship and punched his ticket to Super Bowl VII, but he beat the Cowboys. The stakes were really high.
I mean, Allen despised the Cowboys. I mean, he intensified the Redskins-Cowboys rivalry. They had a little bit of a rivalry in the 60s when Sonny Jergensen was the Redskins quarterback.
Don Meredith was the Cowboys quarterback. They played some really high-scoring games, very exciting. But the rivalry escalated to a new level when Allen came to coach here in 1971.
He didn't like the Cowboys because he didn't like Tech Schramm, who had a friendly relationship with Dan Reeves. Tech Schramm was one of the Cowboys executives and Dan Reeves, NFL commissioner. The two had previously spent time together on the staff of the Los Angeles Rams in the 1950s.
Also, Dan Reeves was friends with Rozelle. So Reeves was previously the Rams owner. So I'm sure Reeves didn't say the most flattering things to Rozelle about- Well, Rozelle was a Los Angeles guy, right? Didn't he come out of Los Angeles? I believe he came from San Francisco.
Oh, okay. Okay. I believe, yeah, I believe he was from San Francisco, but he was the public relations director for the Rams for part of the 1950s.
Maybe that's what I'm thinking. Okay. Right, right.
That's how he became aligned with that organization, and he came to know Tech Schramm. So Allen thought there was some conspiracy on the part of the Cowboys and NFL commissioner Pete Roselle in terms of the decision-making. And sure enough, the first three regular-season games in 1971 were NFC East games on the road for the Redskins.
Now, that would be unfathomable today. I don't think that would ever happen. But the way the scheduling was set up, the Redskins played their first three games against NFC East opponents on the road.
They won all three games. They beat the Cardinals, Giants, and Cowboys in Dallas. They won their first five games that season.
And like I said, they finished 9-4-1. And also, when they beat the Cowboys, when the plane got back from Dallas and landed at Dulles Airport, there were about 10,000 fans that stormed Dulles Airport to greet the Redskins players coming back and to congratulate Allen and the players. I mean, they were longing for a winner.
It had been 1945 since the Redskins had gone to an NFL championship game and 42 since they had won one. So nothing had happened in this town in terms of a winner. The Senators and the baseball team were nothing.
They actually moved out. They moved to Arlington, Texas, at the beginning of that 71 season. So, there was no baseball team or Major League Baseball team in Washington.
There was no NBA team. The Washington Bullets hadn't moved here yet, or the Baltimore Bullets, I should say. They hadn't moved here yet.
And there was no hockey team. The Washington Capitals didn't start here until 1974. The Redskins were the only game in town.
And Allen really seized that opportunity. Okay. Very interesting.
So what was sort of, how did his career end with Washington? What happened there with him leaving the Redskins? So after the 72 seasons, he went to the playoffs three more times, losing in the first round each time, 73, 74, and 76. And before the 1977 season, in the offseason, Edward Bennett Williams offered him a contract extension, but he never signed it. And this just dragged on through the 77 season.
It was a four-year extension. It just dragged on. And by the end of the 77 season, Allen still didn't sign that extension.
At the same time, the Los Angeles Ram's job opened up. Chuck Knox, the Rams coach, he left that Rams job, and he went to Buffalo to become the head coach of the Buffalo Bills. So that job was open.
Allen, as I write in the book, a really strong theory is that he wanted to return to Los Angeles. He and his wife wanted to go back to LA. They still had their home in Palos Verdes Estates, that's a Los Angeles suburb.
They still had their home there. So they wanted to go back there. So Allen never signed the extension, and Williams just let him walk at a certain point.
He said, I've given George Allen unlimited patience, and he has exceeded it. It was actually a play on words that were similar to what Williams said in 1971. Allen built Redskins Park for $500,000.
Williams said at the time, I gave him an unlimited budget, and he exceeded it. So that was another thing. The money part, Williams didn't appreciate a lot of the things that Allen was doing, a lot of the decision-making on his part.
Allen had full control. He had control of the draft. He had control of the active player roster.
He had control of all the money spent. Williams didn't appreciate it, and they were also at each other's throats. But Williams still offered him that contract extension heading into the 77 season, which Allen never signed.
Interesting. So, if we look back at George Allen and his professional coaching career, what's his legacy as a coach in the NFL? Well, record-wise, I mean, he never had a losing season in 12 years of coaching in the NFL and 14 seasons overall. He coached for two years in the NFL.
He's the only coach in NFL history not to have suffered a losing season in more than ten years of coaching. Today, he's number three all-time in regular season winning percentage for coaches with at least 100 career victories, a 7-21 winning percentage. That's phenomenal.
I mean, he's third. John Madden is number one, and Lombardi is number two. So, in 21 years of pro football overall, he was only associated with two losing teams, the 1960 and 1964 Bears.
Aside from that, I mean, he was an amazing, tremendous innovator. He was a pioneer on special teams and defense. On defense, he introduced schemes like the nickelback, the five defensive backs, and the dime defense, six defensive backs.
Those are very innovative for their time. He had these really creative blitz packages. On special teams, he hired one of the first true special teams coaches.
He hired Dick Vermeule as the Rams special teams coach in 1969. The Eagles hired Marv Levy the same year to coach their special teams in 1969. So he hired one of the first special teams coaches, but he put emphasis on special teams that no other coach or head coach had ever done.
I mentioned that Block Funt in the Packers game. There were other really pivotal plays that his teams made in plays on special teams that decided the games. He would count on his special teams for one or two wins per season.
So he was really, really an innovator in the area of special teams. One year, 1976, he asked a former Redskins player named Bill Malinchuk, who was a master punt blocker from 1971 through 74. Malinchuk blocked four punts, but he retired after that 74 season.
So, by 1976, Malinchuk was a commodities broker on Wall Street. So Alan asked him to come back toward the end of the 76 season. He said, Bill, you only have to make one great play on special teams.
I know you can do it. So Malinchuk left his job on Wall Street. He came back to play for the Redskins in the last three regular-season games that year.
I mean, he was obviously making a lot of money on Wall Street, making much less when he came back to play for the Redskins. So I asked him, why would you do that? He said I would do anything for George Allen. I'll come back.
If George called me, I'd be there. Sure enough, in the final regular season game that year, 1976, Malinchuk blocked a punt. He blocked Danny White's punt.
Danny White was the Cowboy's punter and backup quarterback at the time. He blocked Danny White's punt in the season-ending regular season game against the Cowboys that year. The Redskins won that game and then lost in the first round of the playoffs that year.
That win qualified them for the playoffs. They lost in the first round of the playoffs that year. Amazing story.
Why don't we give listeners, give them the name of the book and places where they can purchase it. Sure. The name of the book is George Allen, A Football Life.
Anyone can get an author autographed copy by going to my website, mikerichmondjournalist.com forward slash books, mikerichmondjournalist.com forward slash books. And Richmond is R-I-C-H-M-A-N. My Twitter handle is MSR underscore journalist.
But anyone can get an author-autographed copy by going to my website. The book is also available through Amazon and also through Nebraska Press, which is my publisher. Okay.
And folks, if you're driving or don't have a pen and pencil, we'll put that link in the podcast show notes. You can get hooked right into Mike's website and take them up on that offer, getting the autograph book. That's always a great thing to have the author sign the book, too.
That's very personalized. So it's a great thing you're doing. So we have a few minutes here.
You have any final thoughts on George Allen? Sure. Well, I failed to mention, and I have to, you asked me about his legacy. He's in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was inducted in 2002. And he's certainly deserving of it. I mean, I've gotten the question: why not Marty Schottenheimer today? Wasn't Schottenheimer sort of like the George Allen of yesteryear? Schottenheimer had an amazing regular season record, and he made many more playoff games than George Allen did, but he's not in the Hall of Fame.
I think Marty Schottenheimer should eventually get into the Hall of Fame. But I think what pushed George Allen over the hill and into Canton was his innovations. It wasn't only his record, but his innovations, like I was explaining on defense and special teams, that really put him a step above many other coaches of his time.
Also, for that era when he coached, he was one of the elite coaches at the time. He was with Lombardi and Shula. He was on par with them as one of the elite coaches in that era.
So he was known as one of the best at that time. Yeah. If you think about it, I mean, the diamond and nickel are probably, what, 40, 50% of defensive packages in today's modern game.
That's quite common, especially with the way the offenses are throwing their personnel out on the field. So that is a major innovation. Is that the comparison between him and Schottenheimer because they're winning coaches that weren't championship-winning coaches? Basically, yeah.
Why George Allen and not Marty Schottenheimer? I've gotten that question. I think it's a legitimate question. I think Schottenheimer was a phenomenal coach.
Like I said, I think he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and I hope he will be inducted someday. I think what separates Allen from Schottenheimer is the innovations, the things that he introduced to the game. And like you said, those nickel and dime packages and even special teams themselves are so integral to the game of football today.
I mean, Bill Belichick wasn't a disciple of George Allen, but he adopted a lot of Allen's special teams ploys. In fact, he read Allen's book on special teams. In fact, toward the end of the book, I mentioned that Belichick learned a lot from George Allen in terms of special teams.
So that area of the game, which is soaking in when we see it today, it decides so many games, you know, returns and block kicks and whatever. George Allen was really the first coach that put, he put the most emphasis on that facet of football. And I think it really shows today.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Mike, it sounds like an excellent book. I hope people are going to take you up on your offer and you'll get that signed copy.
If not, you know, they have the other avenues that they can get it also. And enjoy this great story of this coach from yesteryear who had so much success and is still influential in today's game. And that's always a good thing too.
So Mike, thanks for writing the book and telling us the story of George Allen and coming on today and sharing it with us, with the listeners. So thank you very much. Yeah, thank you, Darin.
I just want to say that, you know, it's our job to uphold the history of the game. And so I'm very happy to do it. And I thought that it was my responsibility, having grown up with George Allen Redskins to really relive his full life and focus on his coaching so much.
So, I was very, very happy to take on the project.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.
