RIP Larry Allen
How many replay highlights are of offensive lineman? Lineman exist in a supporting role during football games. No matter how important they are to the game itself, your eyes are typically elseware. When big plays happen, you watch the RB, or WR, or defender, or anyone do their magic. You have to take time and make effort to watch the lineman. They move in a mostly fluid mass. You learn their names usually when they fail to do their job correctly and get beaten or commit a penalty. If you are lucky, a broadcast will highlight a block and the job a lineman does. But if you are a lineman, you don’t end up on replays and game highlight reels unless the highlight reel is being made specifically about you.
There are, of course, the occasional exceptions, and that’s when something goes screwball. Sometimes a fumble happens and the big man ends up with the football. Sometimes the team calls a trick play in the redzone and a lineman catches a touchdown. Sometimes a squib kick ends up in the arms of your right guard, who magically rumbles 70 yards. There’s a pretty good argument to be made that the Dan Connolly run is the best offensive lineman highlight of all time. But I don’t know if I agree. For one thing, he didn’t score. For another, you can watch the Packers just utterly fail to contain and give him a perfect angle for his rumble. I think the best random offensive lineman highlight of all time belongs to Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer/Mack Truck Larry Allen.
Larry Allen was 6’3, 325lbs. In his rookie season he chased down a linebacker off an Aikman interception. Just try to comprehend a man that size running faster than everyone else on the field in that moment. Like the announcer states in the clip, that is legitimately one of the most impressive athletic feats you will ever see in football. The big guys don’t run like that. It’s not their job to. He did it anyway.
Larry Allen was maybe of the the strongest men to ever play football. He benched over 600 lbs. He would yell “Choo Choo” when the run was being called to his side, telling the defenders what was coming and still just pancaking them. The man was a brick wall of mass. He was the kind of lineman that bullrushes simply do not work on. He was a massive part of the ’94 and ’96 championship teams, leading Emmit and protecting Aikman from all sorts of danger. For all the superstars on those teams, Larry is probably one of the least appreciated and most vital.
When he passed earlier this week absolutely nobody had anything bad to say about the guy. All stories about him seemed to show a humble man who didn’t talk much, just did his job. We lost a legend of the game, and he will be missed.
Too bad he did it wearing that awful 90’s uniform with the huge star on the shoulder.
That might be the most legitimately impressed I’ve ever heard an announcer be. It’s awesome.
Larry Allen was the platonic ideal of a lineman.
Big. Round. Strong. Tall. Undeniably ferocious on the field. Great guy off the field. I don’t know that we have any guys in the league now who are quite the same blend of ability and personality in that kind of package. As a bigger guy, I always love to see big boy highlights! Allen’s are among the best all time!
As a Packers fan, that Dan Connely highlight always makes me so angry. We lost that game, and that completely preventable play is the reason. Ugh.
Still cool though.
The Draw Play! With a special guest appearance by Fred Durst.
Hated him with the Cowboys, loved him in his two years with the Niners, always respected him. A big man in every regard. RIP Larry Allen.
Larry Allen is one of those rare Cowboy players you like despite his team. He was just that impressive. RIP.
Was “Do Crime” a callout to Repo Man?
The awesome 80’s one with Emilio Estevez, not the disappointing 2010 Jude Law one,
“Let’s go get sushi, and not pay!”
Like the comic shows, I could not imagine the horror of watching a man the size of a Ford F-150 chase you down in you peripheral vision.
Larry Allen was the player people thought Mandarich would become.