The Kevin Sheehan Show - George Allen: A Football Life

Episode Date: November 11, 2023

Kevin's Part 2 of his interview with Skins' historian and author Mike Richman about his new book, "George Allen: A Football Life". Mike shares stories from the book about the life and accomplishments of one of the most successful NFL coaches of all time and one of the greatest innovators in the game. Allen brought winning football to DC in 1971 and his success resulted in one of the most passionate fan bases in the NFL for decades. The stories of Allen's early life which included an unannounced visit to Albert Einstein's house are priceless. Allen's football coaching career in the NFL started with George Halas in Chicago where he was instrumental in leading the Bears to a 1963 NFL title. His Los Angeles Rams teams in the late 60's are some of the most memorable teams in NFL history. And then he came to Washington where he created an immediate winner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it, but you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Chean Show. Here's Kevin. So last Saturday we put out part one of a conversation with Mike Richmond, the author that has written the book on George Allen called George Allen, A Football Life. Mike's been an author for a while.

Mike has written several books about the Washington franchise, including the Redskins Encyclopedia and a book about Joe Gibbs. you can find all of his books, including his new book, and a signed copy of his new book is available at Mike Richmond Journalist.com. But we put out part one of the conversation that talked about George Allen's life leading up to the moment he arrived in Washington in 1971. So that's the part I'm putting out today. It is presented by Window Nation. Call them at 86690 Nation or go to Windonation dot com. Mention my name.

You'll get a free estimate and you'll get access to their current deal, which is 0% interest for five years plus buy two, get two free so you're paying half price on the windows. 86690 Nation and windownation.com. Windonation, thank you for being the presenting sponsor of this podcast. So I'm going to pick up from where we left off a week ago. If you haven't listened to Part 1, it's a question. available. You can just get it by going back to Saturday, November 4th, and looking at that show entitled George Allen, A Football Life. But this is part two of my conversation with Mike,

and we picked up with George Allen arriving in Washington. So now we're at the 71 season. Alan is the head coach general manager. He's built Redskin Park. He's gone after, you know, The future is now was, you know, sort of the motto of the day. And he goes and just starts acquiring players using draft choices. What was like the first of the big off season moves? His very first acquisition is, I would say not only his first major acquisition, but his first acquisition was Billy Kilmer. He got Billy Kilmer from the Saints.

Yep. And Kilmer was signed as a backup to Sonny Jorgensen. And I talked to Bruce about this. George Allen, the whole time, thought Sonny Jurgensen was going to be a starting quarterback. So Kilmer was going to be a backup to Jurgensen. Now, Kilmer didn't like that at all. But Jurgensen was going to be the starter, and it so happened that Jurgensen injured his shoulder in a preseason game against the Dolphibbys 171.

So that's when Kilmer was tapped as a starter. but Jurgensen the whole way was going to be the starter on that team, and Alan was very, very excited about that. I mean, to have a quarterback the caliber of Sonny Jurgensen, who even though I think it was 36 years old at the time, he was still in his prime as a great quarterback. So, but then it so happened, he had a shoulder injury in the 71 preseason, and Kilmer came on and quarterbacked the team for most of that year.

Sonny did play in a few games toward the end of the season, but he got injured again. So that was basically Kilmer's team throughout 71. Right. So, you know, he also acquired a lot of players from the Rams, several players from the Rams. The Rams skins. Yeah, the Ramskins. And that was led by, you know, Jack Pardee, right?

Pardy, Padios, Diron Talbert, Jeff George. I'm going to Jeff, the special teams player, he was one of them. I think. Tommy Mason. Tommy Mason. What about Pettabone? Petibone came on later. He wasn't part of the initial acquisition package.

But he was on that 71 team. Oh, absolutely, yes. He came on in the spring. He was a Ramscan, definitely. But he wasn't part of that initial group of Rams players that came over. But yes, Petibone was on that. 71 team. In fact, he had three interceptions in the season opening

win over the Cardinals that year. Right. So that year, I mean, it starts off on fire. You already mentioned week three against the Cowboys. They went 5 and 0. Their defense was dominant, right? I mean, do you think he was surprised

by the early results? Or, you know, was it expected? Like, here's what I don't know. What was expected from his first team in Washington before the year started? Well, when Sonny went down, he predicted a winning season, but he tempered expectations after Sunday went down.

He was predicting like an 8-and-6 record, the 14-game season back then. It was saying 8-6, we'll be happy with that. So you could say there was a bit of a surprise on his part. Now, about that, the start of that 71 season, The NFL scheduled the Redskins to play their first three games against NFC East opponents on the road. Alan thought, and Bruce told me this, they thought that that was a conspiracy on the part of P. Roselle and TechSramm, because those two knew each other, and they were close from back in their days with the Los Angeles Rams in the 70s. Roselle was the PR director for the Rams.

Schram was an executive, he was in the front office. So they knew each other from back in their days with the Rams in the 50s. So when, and fast forward to 71, Schram was in the Cowboys front office, and Roselle was the NFL commissioner. So George Allen thought that that was an agreement on the part of Schram and Roselle to schedule those first three games on the road against NFC's opponents. It so happened. They won those three games.

they won their first five games that year, as you alluded to. And what really hurt them, though, in the next game, the following week, Kansas City, which is their first loss, they lost Charlie Taylor to injury that year. Yeah. He was having a phenomenal season. Yeah, that game's actually available on YouTube. Like the, well, it's the NFL Films version, not the actual game. The Rams game that year, you can actually watch it as it was called by the Monday Night crew.

But that Chiefs game, what's interesting to me is that that was a big game in the NFL season at that point. Because those were the Hank Stram Chiefs, the Len Dawson, Otis Taylor, all of their Hall of Famers on defense. And Washington went out there, and like you said, they were up in the game and Charlie Taylor broke his leg. I think it was on a touchdown catch. Right. And the person that made the tackle, the player that made the tackle, was Emmett Thomas. Emmett Thomas, wow. Who was later an assistant on the Redskins at the same time Charlie Taylor was an assistant.

So, yeah, Emmett Thomas tackled Charlie Taylor at the time he was lunging into the end zone on a touchdown reception. They lost Charlie Taylor for the season. That really set them back. Alan acquired a guy, a receiver named Clifton McNeil, who's a decent receiver. He got it from the Giants. But he wasn't a Charlie Taylor. But Roy Jefferson really stepped up.

That was one of Allen's off season. acquisitions, veteran players. He stepped up. He had a great year. He got two touchdown passes and that Monday night win over the Rams, the George Allen Bowl, the game that you referred to just before, which was Allen's return to Los Angeles, that Monday night game. But they didn't have enough offensive firepower. I mean, the offense was really, really struggling for a large stretch in that season.

But they finished 9-4-1 in 71, and went to the first round of the playoffs. losing to the 49ers. Yeah, they lost to the 49ers. Interestingly, Steve Spurrier was the punter for the 49ers that day. But the Rams game that year, for those that don't know anything about that first team, so he is now in his first year in Washington, and there's a Monday night football game and the second year of Monday night football scheduled for late in the season in the Coliseum against the Rams.

So it's George Allen back in the Coliseum, and the game was essentially for a playoff berth for Washington. And they went in there and they won the game. And by the way, had the biggest offensive output, I think, of the year. Because you said they were struggling on offense, but they won that game 38 to 24. That is correct. Well, one of the touchdowns came on Speedy Duncan's interception return. But they played well enough offensively in that game. in the first half to really hold on to it.

They held on to the lead. The Rams made a run toward the end of the game. But that was arguably George Allen's greatest regular season victory. It was a revenge game for him. He wanted to get back at the Rams for those two firings. Now, Dan Reeves actually had passed away several months prior, so he wasn't at the game, but there were still Rams' front office executives who were part of that Rams team.

He wanted to gain revenge, and he certainly did. I mean, that 3824, when it was big. And back in those days, as you know, Monday night football was a big deal. Oh, yeah. I mean, you would have those games penciled on your calendar who was playing on Monday night because, I mean, everybody would be, you know, gathering around the TV sets in your family room watching it back then. So Monday night football, they were only in their third season.

And, you know, the team of Howard CoSell and Gifford and Don Meredith. I mean, they made it special, too. Have you seen that game? It's available on YouTube, just as it was called. I have seen it, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. And I remember what, yeah, I would absolutely, I remember one play,

I remember a lot of that game, but one play distinctly sticks out because it was that touchdown run by Larry Brown at the end of the first half. Yeah. Charlie Harroway, the blocking back, I'm sure you've seen this. He threw this crunching block. Right. that set Brown free to score. It was a fourth and one play.

They tried four straight runs with Brown to get them into the end zone. They got in on the fourth try. Charlie Harroway, who was a great blocking back, and it was really a decent runner too. As a fullback, he threw one of the greatest blocks I've ever seen. And I also mentioned this because a few months later, my father owned a men's clothing store in Rockville, and as a promo, we had Charlie Harroway there signing autograph.

because one of my father's customers was Brigg Owens, and so he got Harroway to show up for that promo. Yeah, that's a memory that's never going to go away. So they go to the playoffs. They've got the 49ers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the game where Richard Nixon suggests the reverse play and draws it up,

and Alan actually called it during the game, and it did not work out well. Am I right about that or not? That is correct. Jefferson was dropped for about a 10-yard loss, which, yeah, it was an end-round or reverse or however you want to call it. But just to, I explained that play fully in the book. I really did a deep dive. That play was initially Allen's idea. From its genesis, it was Alan's idea. He fed that play to Nixon at the time that Nixon came to Redskins Park. And Nixon came to Redskins Park, around Thanksgiving of that season.

The Redskins were struggling. I think they had gone winless in three straight games. It was two losses and a tie. And so Nixon called George Allen and said, hey, I'd like to come out and give a pep talk to the team. And, you know, being friends with George Allen, as we've talked about earlier, Alan said, sure, we'd love to have you. So Nixon came to Redskins Park and gave the team a pep talk at that time.

And so to make Nixon look like he was really astute as a, you know, a football mind, and he was anyway. Alan fed him that play, and it's one of the plays that Nixon called in the practices that day. He also called like a screen past the Harroway. But that play later, you know, in the ensuing weeks, Nixon called George Allen. And he also spoke to Billy Kilmer about this. And he said, yeah, I'd like to, I'd like you to run that play. in the, if you make the playoffs. So, sure enough, that play was called.

Now, I don't think that was actually George Allen who called the play. I think that play was sent in from the sidelines by Ted Marchabroda, who was the offensive coordinator at the time. And I wrote about this. But why they called that play at that very time is really a mystery in itself.

Why? What was the time? They were, it's like a first in, first in 10, they were on about the 49ers 12-yard line. so why call that type of play when you're so close to the goal line? I mean, and also, George Allen being such a conservative-minded coach, I'm sure his staff was in lockstep with that. Why call that play at that particular time?

So Cedric Hardman, the 49ers' defense event, dropped Jefferson for a major loss. And then to add insult to injury, the snap was low on the field goal attempt. And so Kurt Knight missed the field goal. Yeah, so they went into the halftime with no points on that possession. They were still up 10 to 3, but it was a major downer, and the 49ers came back in the second half and won that game. Yeah. But that's the whole story behind that play. Interesting.

You know, the story like, did Nixon really call the play? Well, no, he didn't phone it in from the Oval Office or anything like that. Yeah. By the way, in 71, those that are familiar with uniforms, it was the second year. of the helmet with the R on it, which was the Lombardi design, right? Because he wanted it to be, you know, somewhat similar to the Packers helmet. And then George Allen decided to change the helmet. Do I have that right? George Allen was instrumental in the change. There was a Native American who was very fond of

George Allen. He actually followed the Redskins with Walter Blackie Wetzel. He had been chair of the National Congress or President of the National. Congress of American India. So he was very familiar with D.C. I'm sure he came here a lot. So he knew the team, and he approached George Allen before the 1972 season. He said, listen, I don't like the R in the helmet. Let's do something different. So Alan said, well, what would you like? You know, give me an idea. Come back with something. So they came up with a composite of the helmet logo that was later used on the helmets, was implanted on the helmet. and that existed for nearly a half century.

But that's how that whole story came about. It was originally the Native American Walter Blackie Wessel, who approached Allen about it, and then Alan concurred, and then they had the helmet logo that existed for nearly 50 years. I also want to say that George Allen, he had his own affinity for Native Americans. I mean, dating back to when he's with the Chicago Bears, I mean, he started his own athletic fund for Native Americans on a particular reservation, the Oglala Lakota-Suit tribe in South Dakota, it was called the Red Cloud Athletic Fund.

So he, you know, it was close to his heart, the fate of American Indians. So when Wetzel approached him, I'm sure, you know, thoughts went through Allen's mind that, hey, you know, this is right up my alley. is something I'd really like to do. All right. So 72 is the second year. So he takes him to the playoffs, loses to the 49ers. 72 turns out to be the year that they won the division. They went to the Super Bowl, lost to the Dolphins famously in Super Bowl 7

after beating the Cowboys in the NFC title game on New Year's Eve, 1972. But Kilmer's the starting quarterback at the beginning of that season. They opened that year on Monday night football in Minnesota against the Vikings. So why wasn't Sonny the starter? Alan gave them both opportunities in the preseason. I think Kilmer was going to be the starter all along, even though their numbers were very comparable in the preseason. Kilmer started the first half of the six preseason games.

By the way, they played six exhibition games back then. Sonny played the second half. They both had really, really good statistics. but when all was said and done, Alan, I mean, he favored Kilmer at the time. I mean, Kilmer had court, I quoted him as saying in the book that, you know, Kilmer, Billy Kilmer led us through most of the 1971 season. I want to stick with him. So he started Kilmer entering the 72 season.

Right. But they beat the Vikings. Yeah, they beat the Vikings, but they lost that very controversial game to New England, which was a big upset at the time. And was it after that game that he decided to go with Sunny? Exactly, yes. Well, they actually won the second game of the year against the Cardinals, and then they, so they were two-no heading into that Patriots game.

They lost the Patriots. That was very, very controversial. I mean, if instant replay had existed, then, they would have won the game. I think the Redskins would have had two more touchdowns. First of all, Roy Jefferson caught a pass. He clearly had both feet in bounds. Okay, that pass was ruled incomplete. Then toward the end of the game,

and what is probably the most controversial. The block penalty in NFL history. You know about Malincheck recovered. It looked like he was in the end zone when he recovered the ball. But then he slid out the back of the end zone. They ruled out of safety. So in the end, the Redskins lost that game 24 to 23. So if the replay had existed back then,

they would have had at least one more touchdown, I would have won that game. But so, yeah, then he tapped Sunny after that game. He just was getting, you know, a lot of heat. People were saying, you know, Kilmer didn't have the greatest stats and that loss to the Patriots. He threw several interceptions. So, you know, there was a lot of rumbling going on that, hey, you know,

it's time for Sunday to start. It was coming from the fans. It was coming from the media. So sure enough, Alan tapped Sunny to start heading into the third week of that season. And they went on a run, and, I mean, eventually he toured. is Achilles in Yankee Stadium against the Giants. But he was the starting quarterback for the first, you know, for a huge Cowboys game early in that season at RFK.

And, you know, yeah. Well, that was a huge win. Yeah, they beat the Cowboys 24 to 20 at RFK Stadium that day. Yeah. And in fact, Nixon and Allen spoke after the game. Alan talked, you know, we talked about how those, the stands at RFK Stadium, which shake. We talk about that all the time during the Joe Gives era. But that was actually true during the George Allen era too. And that was something that Alan relayed to Nixon in that phone

conversation, which interestingly is part of the Watergate tapes. Oh yeah, that's right. I knew that Alan was on some of those Watergate tapes. I mean, I'm wondering, you know, playing, coaching in the Coliseum in front of an L.A. kind of laid back crowd. Did he love sort of how raucous and how, you know, incredibly electric the environment was at RFK? Because it had to be completely different than the Coliseum. Oh, it was like night and day. And I'm glad to refer to the way the Coliseum was in L.A. Because this goes back to one of your previous questions about, you know, Alan being a star in L.A. They didn't sell out those games at the Coliseum.

Right. Even though Alan was such a, you know, he was winning, you have this great winning records year after year. They weren't selling out those games. And this, of course, you know, a factor in that, too, is what we touched on before. There were other pro teams in the city at the time, and there were other great college teams. But, yeah, when he got to D.C., the Redskins were the only show in town. Basically, all of the senators moved right at that very time when the 71 season started. And there was no, the bullets weren't there at the time.

And hockey hadn't started yet. Maryland basketball by far and away was the number two story in town. Yes, it was. I actually wrote about that. I wrote about Lefty, you know, saying that, hey, you know, we're going to be the UCLA of the East. Right. But Maryland basketball, right, they were the number two sports story in town at the time. Yeah. But there were no other pro teams that were competing with the Redskins for fan interest. Right. None. I mean, the bullet showed up in 73, you know, and that was, two years after Alan got here. So back to the 72 season. You know, they go 11 and 3. Larry Brown's the,

you know, the offensive player of the year. Their defenses lights out. They play the Packers. Christmas Eve, 1972. George Allen's never won a playoff game. This is not the Lombardi Packers. Okay, everybody. This is the Dan Devine Packers, I think, was the coach at the time. Tell me about what he, the defense that he employed against the Packers, wasn't that the game that they put, they had a five-man defensive front to stop John, John Brockington, who was the running back? Right. Brockington and MacArthur Lane. The Packers had a really good backfield in those two guys.

I mean, it was like a 70th version of the Bull Elephant backfield. So, but they had their quarterback was really bad. Scott Hunter was the quarterback at the time. he was really, he was just like, it was like mediocre, if not worse. He was just a bad quarterback. So Alan, you know, he smelled dominance on the defensive line. So he packed it in on the line. He had five guys rushing the quarterback,

and they certainly took advantage of the quarterback. But not only that, I mean, they shut down lane and Brockington. I mean, the Packers did virtually nothing on offense that game. and the Reds, they won 16 to 3, but they basically dominated that game. Yeah. Kilmer had a very, he had a gorgeous touchdown past to Roy Jefferson. Kurt Knight kicked three field goals. They also got a very nice kickoff return after the Packers took their 3-0 lead.

They got a nice kickoff return from a player named Herb Mulkey. Yeah, of course. Alan had these free agent tryout camps. You know, anybody off the street could come and try out. So he had this tryout camp, I believe he found Mouki at one of those camps at Georgetown University. And it was an off-season trial camp. Malki had played a semi-pro ball in the Atlanta area. And then they saw his speed in camp, which back then I think he ran like a maybe like a 4-4, 4-5-40,

which back for those days was pretty fast. Right. Maybe even been a little fast. Maybe 4-3. so they signed him and sure enough he produced. I mean, not only that kickoff return, but late in the 72 season, he had a great game offensively and on special teams in a loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Dallas. Didn't he that year?

Did he make his name, though, in the preseason in the first ever game at Buffalo's, you know, in a new stadium in Orchard Park. Didn't he return the opening kickoff for a touchdown? That was the first play ever at that stadium, which, by the way, still exists today. Wasn't that how he made the team, or am I thinking of something else? I am going to plead ignorance on that. You may be very right about that, but I'm not certain of that. I think in terms of regular season when he first came on the scene was in that game

against the Cowboys. And the next last game of the 72 season, he had like 280 yards of total production on offense and special teams, you know, monster kick returns. And he was running, rushing the ball, catching passes. So that's when he first made a name for himself, when he first caught the coached his eye. He wasn't going to supplant Larry Brown as the lead running back for sure.

All right. Let's take a break, and when we come back, we'll get to the most significant game, I'm pretty sure, in the George Allen tenure in D.C. We'll do that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Cowboys NFC title game, New Year's Eve, 1972. You know, this is the rivalry, I know that the game in 71 when they won in the Cotton Bowl and they came back and everybody was thrilled. and when did Alan really start to pump up the rivalry with the Cowboys? I would say he really, I mean, on the intensity meter, it went up a few, like, it skyrocketed when he came to Washington in 1971. He just, first of all, he had an antipathy for the Cowboys going back to the days when they played them in the 60s.

And also, they scrimmage the Cowboys. When he coached the Rams, they scrimmage the Cowboys. in 1,000 of California. But he's still, back in those days, he thought they got favoritism from the league. But then when they were in the same division, when he came to Washington 71, I mean, he just intensified the rivalry severalfold.

Yeah, he just had this dislike for the Cowboys and their front office and their, you know, their, you know, their corporate image, which even they had back then. I mean, they weren't known as America's team yet. Right. But Tom Landry had given them that type of personality as a team, you know, with the flex defense and that, you know, the formation lining up on offense. Offense, yeah, where the line would go up and then down, yeah, the whole thing.

Right, right. They had this very cerebral image. And just Alan didn't like that. You know, he was like, you know, this rah-rah guy, this rah-rah coach, you know, three cheers for the redskins. So he was the exact opposite of Tom Landry. And all these factors played into the rivalry. And at the end, Alan beat Landry more times than any other coach.

He beat him 10 times in head-to-head competition. Alan had a 10-and-10 record against him by the end of his career. Including Los Angeles. Including Los Angeles. Yeah. Of his three top coaching rivals, his three top coaching rivals were Landry. in this order. I put Landry, Shula, and Lombardi. And Shula was his primary rival when he was in L.A.

He only played him one time. He played him twice when he was in D.C. He played him in the Super Bowl and then in the 74 regular season game. I'm trying to think. I think he was 500 against them here? Against the Cowboys? Overall, I think you're correct, yes. the record in D.C.

Well, it couldn't have been 500 because they would have played 71-77, so 14 and then 15 times. So it was, you know, including the NFC championship game. Whatever. It's not important. It was close to it. I think the Cowboys may have had an edge record-wise when Alan

was in D.C. But overall, through the years, he had a 10-10 record against Landry. Does everybody in Allen's life say that the win over the Cowboys in the NFC championship game is his greatest win? Oh, that was his crowning moment as a coach. Yeah.

You can't deny that. That was his, that was their Super Bowl win, basically. They, meeting the Cowboys that day, with everything going into the game, the two teams were trading accusations and the days leading up to the game. I mean, Dyrant Talbot, who was Allen's right-hand man for getting under the Cowboys scan. I mean, he was saying stuff. he was saying, oh, Roger Staback, he can't read defenses.

Roger Staback wears skirts. They were throwing that stuff around. And back in those days, I mean, they didn't care if it got into the papers, you know, to rile the other team up. So, yeah, there was a tremendous hatred both teams had for each other. They thought there was dirty play on both sides. So that win over the Cowboys was Allen's biggest win as a head coach in the NFL. I mean, you could say that if they had beaten the dolphins, that would have been his biggest win.

But as you know, they came up short in that game. Yeah, I mean, there's been so many stories told about that game. Netted out for me, were they burnt out, you know, after two weeks and after, you know, nightly curfews and everything? A lot of those players over the years have said, you know, it wasn't exactly fun when they got to the game. And that's exactly right. I mean, even the first week when they were practicing at Redskins Park, he practiced it. He went really hard with them. I mean, it was like, you know, his regular practices that week.

And even when they got to Los Angeles, he was putting them through some really rigorous practices. So by the time they got, by the time of the opening kickoff, they were burned out at the time. I mean, Terry Hermering told me that. Brigg-Owenz told me that. So, yeah, but, you know, when all I said and done, I mean, the Redskins were not far away from winning that game. I mean, they had a chance. They had a final possession. They were down 14 to 7 if they had been able to put together a drive at the end.

I mean, I think there was more than a minute left when they had possession. I think they were out of timeouts. Yeah. I think they weren't able to muster a drive. But. Well, the touchdown pass, it would have been a touchdown pass to Jerry Smith hit the crossbar. on one of those drives. And the goalpost of time were on the goal line. Yeah, exactly. So the goalpost, I mean, if it had been like today, that passed, I mean, that would not have

happened. That would have been a touchdown. There were other strange plays in that game. Kilmer had a touchdown pass to Charlie Taylor. Taylor was wide open at the goal line. This was in the second half. Taylor tripped at the goal line. Yeah. As he was lunging for that pass. So it was just, I mean, they had a lot of bad luck that day. And, I mean, there was also a touchdown that the Dolphins scored that was called back. It was like a, you know, greasy through like a 50-yard pass to Paul Warfield that was called back. So I don't think the Dolphins played their best game, but I don't think that, I mean, I don't think that 17-0 Dolphins team, would you say despite their record that they were on par with one of the greatest NFL teams of all time?

No, no. I mean, in fact, a lot of the rankings of the all-time great teams in Super Bowl winners, The 72 dolphins are rarely at the top of that list. Yeah, I certainly would not put them in that category either. I mean, they nearly lost their first round playoff game to the, I think it was their AFC championship game to the Steelers. Well, yeah, but they had to play it on the road because of what you said earlier. It was not based on record.

It was based on rotating, you know, sort of divisional venues. And Pittsburgh, as the team that had a worse record hosted, that AFC title game. By the way, thank God the NFC East. Well, the Cowboys were a wild card team. Actually, I don't know the answer to this. The Cowboys beat the 49ers in an upset in the divisional round, which is why they came as the wild card team to RFK for the NFC championship game.

If the 49ers had won that, do you have any idea where the NFC championship game would have been? I do not know. That's a very good question. I do not. Because it was not based on record back then. It was rotating, you know, divisions that, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

I wonder if, I mean, that would have been. Can you imagine if they had to go back to San Francisco for the NFC championship game? Well, it all worked out. Moving forward through the rest of Allen's time here, is there, do you know if there's a loss other than the Super Bowl? that was really painful for him. Because to me, there's one game in particular that costs them a playoff spot. And I wonder if there's, you know, a loss that he, you know, really burned over. Oh, absolutely.

It was the Clint Longley game. The Allen family will never forget that game. They'll never live that game down. I mean, you had a rookie quarterback come in. He had no experienced play. playing in the NFL. He comes in, and as you probably know, I mean, defenses, they had no tape on them. They haven't scouted him at all. So the Redskins' defense wasn't prepared for him. He lit it up. He threw a touchdown pass to Billy Joe DePree. He threw that game ending

touchdown pass to Drew Pearson, and the Cowboys won that game 24 to 23. That game will go down as George Allen's greatest regular season loss. Or it is down as George Allen's greatest regular season loss. I mean, that was just, that was a hard loss to swallow. And as Charlie Taylor told me in an interview, I mean, when they were up in that game, then they had like a two-touchdown lead at one point. They could literally smell the turkey.

Yeah. But losing that game, losing that game was just really, really, really hard to swallow for George Allen. But that is, as far as a regular season loss, that was really, really painful. You know, what's interesting about that loss is it cost them ultimately the best record in the NFC, and they ended up being a wildcard team, and they had to go to the Coliseum to face the Rams in the postseason. They had beaten the Rams in the regular season that year at the end of the year to clinch a playoff spot, just like he had done in 71.

and then they lost to the Rams in what would turn out to be Sonny Jurgensen's final game. He came in and did not perform very well in his final game. But what I was thinking of was the game the following season that cost him a playoff berth, which was the Mel Gray catch game in St. Louis. Because they didn't go to the playoffs in 75. They didn't go in 77 either his final year. But the Mel Gray, you know, No catch, which was ruled a catch, cost them a playoff berth that year.

Right. In the end, you're right. It's a major reason they didn't make the playoffs. That loss in itself didn't knock them out of the playoffs. No, no, no. It wasn't the last game of the year, right. Right, right. But, oh, that was that, I mean, even by today's standards, that would not have been a catch.

I mean, that ball was knocked out of Mel Gray before his feet even hit the turf. It wasn't even close, yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that was not a catch. And for them to, for the officials to even confer after that play and decide whether it was a catch or not, I mean, that was ridiculous. That was another play that if instant replay had existed at the time. Oh, yeah. I mean, that would have easily been overturned. There were several bad calls that went against the Redskins during that they had a bad loss to the Raiders in overtime.

Yeah. They were that very season. There were several bad calls. I think it was the next game or maybe two games later, something like that. Right. There was a really bad stretch. They had several – those two overtime games, the Cardinals and the Raiders, and there was a third overtime game that they played in.

Oh, they beat the Cowboys. They beat the Cowboys in overtime that year. Yeah, that was their first overtime game. It was the second year of the overtime rule, but in 74, they didn't play an overtime game. In 75, they played three of them in the second year. And they beat the Cowboys on the Kilmer sneak after the Houston interception in overtime. And then they lost to the Cardinals on the Mel Gray catch that tied it. And then like you said, the Raiders with Stabler and that whole great Raiders team came to RFK and won an overtime.

That was a mighty team. Oh, yeah. I was bland to kick the overtime. Yeah. I think the 75 team was an excellent team. And actually one of the better offensive teams of the Allen era, but they just had those close controversial losses that kept them from the postseason. All right, let's take a break.

And when we come back, we will move forward towards how it all came to an end for George Allen in D.C. We'll get to that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. So let's fast forward to the end, 77. They actually played really well down the stretch. They would have been a real son of a you know what to beat had they made the postseason. I'll never forget it. It was Jack Pardee, Chicago Bears, and like an ice storm that ended up winning a game to get to the postseason against the Giants and the Meadowlands. If the Giants had won the game, Washington would have gone to.

to the postseason, and I think they would have been a tough out. But that was it. How did it come to an end? During that 77 season, Edward Bennett Williams offered Alan a contract extension. And I'm sorry, this was prior to the 77. But Alan never signed the extension. So months dragged on, the season comes to an end. They start some real serious talks again.

Alan wanted the stock option in the contract, the stock option that we referred to earlier. Right. He wanted that in the contract. Williams refused to do that. Also, Williams, in that four-year extension, was going to, he was going to pull some of Alan's responsibility. I don't think Alan would any longer be the general manager on that team. Williams did not want him to have that authority anymore. okay

now while all of this was happening Chuck Knox left the Rams right in L.A. He got the Buffalo Bill's job and he wasn't fired he just walked out

I don't think Carol Rosenblum cared for him anymore because they were losing in the playoffs every year so Knox couldn't get them to the Super Bowl so he walked after the 77 season

so that job was open so as I wrote in the book Alan and his wife Etty wanted to go back to L.A. They still had their house in Palace Verdesist's States, which they had purchased in the 60s. It was a Ritzie neighborhood, or suburb of Los Angeles. They still had that house.

They wanted to go back there, and that is a major reason why Alan never signed that contract extension with the Redskins. Now, over the years, that has been called a firing. I don't think that is the right way to characterize that whole sequence. Williams had offered him a contract extension. Alan just never signed it. So Williams finally said, I've given him unlimited patience and he's exhausted it.

It's kind of a play-out word of what Williams said in 71. So Williams just said, that's enough. No longer am I offering you this extension. It's over with. We're going to look for another coach. And that's when they hired Partie. But Allen at the same time, I mean, he was out of work for a few days, but that's when Rosenblum hired him as the Rams coach.

So what you're saying is that he entered that season, perhaps, knowing that it would be his last season, and that they wanted to go back to L.A. if the opportunity. But you also mentioned the stock option opportunity. What if Edward Bennett-Williams had given him the stock option for equity? I would think he likely would have stayed in Washington. Okay. Because the franchises were much more lucrative at the time.

I mean, it was much different than 1971. Sure. The league was signing major contracts with the TV networks. Right. It wasn't like it is today, but it was still a lot of money back then. So the Redskins franchise would have been worth a lot more than if Alan had bought into it in 71. That 5% stock option, I mean, he would have had tremendous return because of the Redskins. can value at the time. But Alan never included the stock option. And Alan really no longer

had Jack Kent Cook's ear at that time either. I spoke to Bruce about this because I don't think Cook wanted him to have the stock option either. And by the way, that was the same stock option that Vince Lombardi had in 69. I mean, do you know what it was for? Like what percentage of the team it was four? Yeah, it was five percent. Five percent of the team. Wow. Five percent of the team, which still would have been a lot of money. Oh, my God, yeah. The return on that. Yeah.

But Williams never included the stock option in the contract extension, and Alan just said, the hell with it. We're going L.A. Alan hadn't decided that before the 70. He decided it after 70-7. When Knox left the Rams coaching job, and when he took the bill's job, that's when that job was open. So, I mean, everything was like, you know,

everything was coming together at the same time. It was a confluence of a number of different circumstances. So why didn't, I mean, he got hired by Carol Rosenblum to return to L.A. And then, like, it never made it through preseason, right? He was, Rosenblum fired him after two preseason games. There were players from the very, there were players from the very beginning, such as Isaiah Robertson. Yeah. He was the most outspoken.

but Pat Hayden didn't want him either. And neither did Fred Dreyer. Fred Dreyer, he was a really good Rams defensive end at the time, later the actor. He wanted Cori-L to coach that Rams team because they have the defense. They had some really good players. They had Youngblood. They had Jack Hacksaw Reynolds, Isaiah Robertson. So they had a very good Rams defense.

But on offense, under Knox, they were a very, very concerned. conservative offense. They were like a three yards in a cloud of dust offense. Right, yeah. So, Dreyer approached a Rose of them and said, listen, you sign Correelle, and we'll score 50 points a game. That will win a Super Bowl. All you need to do is sign on Coriel. And Coriol had been Dreyer's coach at San Diego State. So not only did he know of him from, you know, Coriol's speech with the Cardinals, but he knew what he could do at at the college level. So Dreyer wanted Rosenblum to hire Correel.

The Rams would have had to relinquish a first-round draft pick to get him. Okay? Rosenblum didn't want to do it. So instead they hired Alan, which, you know, on paper was a, you know, kind of a strange hiring because Alan was a defensive-minded coach too. Right. But Rosenblum wanted Alan's game plan for beating the Cowboys, who the Rams were losing to in the playoffs.

year after year. Right. So they were also losing to the Vikings. And the Vikings too, yeah. So Cori-El goes to the Chargers at that point, right? It doesn't, when Alan comes back to the Rams, and that starts his run with the Chargers, which ironically is where Gibbs ends up.

And then, you know, Pardy replaces, you know, Allen in D.C., his, you know, former middle linebacker. So the players revolted, and so Rosenblum fires Alan, and that's it? did he have to pay him? He paid him the rest of his contract. But, yeah, there was a revolt among the players. It wasn't only the revolt that started at the beginning,

but it really simmered in training camp. I mean, these players were so angry at Allen's long practices. And you've got to think, I mean, the players were gaining more power at the time. They didn't have the power that they have today. They didn't have, you know, pre-agency didn't exist like it does today. But they were gaining more power. It wasn't like the 60s. Alan was holding these three-hour practices in the Southern California heat over the summer.

The players didn't like it. Alan also had this no water policy. That's crazy. That was actually dangerous. Yeah, of course. So that was crazy. He was not the only coach that did that. No, they were giving players salt tablets.

Think about how nuts that is. Right, right. Yeah, I referred to that. But back in the 60s, Alan, to get away with that. He could not get away with it at the time. The team doctor. approached Alan saying, listen, you can't do this. I mean, players are going to, you know, get heat stroke or whatever. So they lost their first two exhibition games. The offense was

basically non-existent in both games. And so Rosa Bloom and his son, Steve, approached him after the second exhibition game and fired him. One interesting anecdote that I wrote about is a story that Dreyer told me about after the first exhibition game. Dreyer said that Alan called him and Youngblood into the end zone after one of the practices, and Alan said, listen, he guys, you know, I've just traded Isaiah Roberts into the Packers, and Dreyer and Youngblood looked at each other, and they said, can he do that? Alan did not have the authority to make trades like that, okay? But in the end, no trade was consummated.

Word probably got back to the Rams front office that Alan had contacted them. And so there was no trade. But that was something else that if trade. I think led to Allen's firing. Now, a reporter for one of the Southern California newspapers at the time, Doug Corcorian, told me that that story was not true. He said, maybe I have to mention it today, but I don't remember that story happening. I mean, I wrote seven stories about that team every week.

But that is a story that Fred Dreyer told me. He said, Alan said, I have just traded Isaiah Robertson to the Packers. I'll tell you what, there's so many stories. about him. I mean, he kicked up a lot of dust, you know, as he went through all these places, and he was a character. This is awesome. Just, you know, I mean, I could go on forever. I've already taken up way too much of your time. But overall, like what, you know, we didn't talk about, you know, him with, you know, hiring of Marve Levy and creating a special teams coach for the first time in NFL history. What is his legacy? Is it more as a, you know,

Was he a true innovator in the sport? He was an absolute innovator. And he was, he introduced schemes on defense, and he made special teams special. I mean, he introduced the nickel and dying past coverages on defense. He had these creative blitz packages that other coaches hadn't seen before. And on special teams, he wasn't the first coach to hire a special team's coach, by the way. He hired for Neil in 69, the same year that he, the Eagles hired Levy

as their special team. But he took special teams to another level. Previously it was kind of like special teams was this aspect of the game that, you know, players will coaches say, hey, run on the field, let's get this over with. But Alan, Alan really,

you know, he added a special touch to that phase of the game. Case in point, that blocked punt that he had in the 67 win over the Packers at least. season win that eventually played a major role in that Rams team getting into the playoffs. I mean, he puts so much emphasis on special teams. And even in, you know, in 76 when they got into the playoffs, he called Bill Malencheck.

Yeah. Right? He called him up. Malinchechick was a commodities broker on Wall Street, and he was retired as an NFL player at the time. So Alan said, Tim, listen, I want you to come back in. You're going to play, like, the last three games in the year for us, and you're going to do something special.

So sure enough, Malincheck blocked Danny White's punt in that season-ending game against the Cowboys. The game that got the Redskins into the playoffs as a wild car game that year. Yeah. Yeah, with, you know, in the season finale, and then they got absolutely blown out by the Vikings in the postseason. This was awesome. I'm really happy for you. I wish you the best of luck with the book.

George Allen, a football life. Get it wherever you get a book. You know, get it at Amazon. I'm looking at it right now. It's Mike Richmond. And if you're, you know, of a certain age, and that's your first teams that you remember like they are for me, I bet you it's incredible. I mean, we didn't even get into USFL or Long Beach State or, you know, any of the rest of his life.

But I'm sure it's a phenomenal book. Congrats and best of luck, Mike. Thank you so much, Kevin. I really, really enjoyed the discussion. Loved your questions. And like I said, I knew you and I were going to have a blast in this conversation. Thank you, Mike. Take care. Thank you very much. You take care as well. I enjoyed that with Mike. I hope you did as well. Again, the book, George Allen, a football life.

And you can get a signed copy at Mike Richmanjournalist.com. All right, back on Monday.