The Greatness of Marcus Allen

Jim Brown is at the top of my list of the greatest running backs in NFL history.

Walter Payton and Barry Sanders are also very high on my list. Brown was the most dominant back in history, Payton the most complete and Sanders the most dynamic.

Filling out most Top 10 lists, you’ll see the names of Emmitt Smith, Eric Dickerson, O.J. Simpson and Earl Campbell. Special players — rushing champions, MVPs, Hall of Famers. Then Marshall Faulk, Adrian Peterson, Thurman Thomas and LaDainian Tomlinson start showing up in the discussion. Tony Dorsett and Edgerrin James sneak into the conversation, as do Derrick Henry and Curtis Martin.

But rarely do you hear the name Marcus Allen. And that’s a tragic oversight. Allen remains one of the most underrated and underappreciated backs in NFL history.

Start with the fact Allen became the first running back in NFL history with 10,000 yards rushing and 5,000 yards receiving. He won a Heisman Trophy at Southern Cal in 1981 and the NFL Rookie of the Year with the Raiders in 1982. He became a rushing champion, a Super Bowl MVP and an NFL MVP. He hasn’t played since 1997 but still ranks sixth on the all-time touchdown list with 145 and 14^th on the all-time rushing list with 12,243 yards.

Allen accomplished all that despite a six-year hole during the prime of his career because of a falling out with Raiders owner Al Davis.

Allen scored 65 touchdowns in his first five seasons, went to four Pro Bowls and helped the Raiders win their final Super Bowl in 1983. He led the league in rushing in 1985 and was named the NFL’s MVP that season. But a sprained ankle in 1986 limited Allen to 10 starts and Davis spent the next six seasons trying to replace him as the feature back – first with Bo Jackson (1987-90), then Roger Craig (1991) and finally Dickerson (1992). Allen would start only 49 games over those six seasons and score just 33 touchdowns.

When his contract expired, Allen left the Raiders for their AFC West rival the Kansas City Chiefs in 1993. Playing in a backfield with Joe Montana, Allen led the NFL with 12 rushing touchdowns and paced the AFC with 15 overall TDs. He returned to his sixth and final Pro Bowl and was named the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year. He teamed with Montana to send the Chiefs to the AFC championship game that year.

Allen closed his career with five seasons in Kansas City, scoring his final 47 touchdowns.

But forget all of Allen’s statistics and the accolades for a moment. What separates him from backs of the past and present was the completeness of his game.

“I spent 24 years with that organization,” said Hall-of-Fame personnel guru Ron Wolf said. “He and Howie Long were the two best players we ever drafted there.

“Marcus had every ingredient you would want in a back, starting with the longevity. He could block, he could catch, he could throw. He could run inside or outside. He had tremendous balance. He was a threat as a runner every time he touched the ball because he could read so well. He was a good inside runner, a good outside runner, a good open field runner. Where he was different from a lot of them was that he was a helluva pass protector. A heckuva pass receiver as well. And he didn’t fumble. All the attributes you look for in a running back…he possessed them all.”

Let’s start with his longevity. Allen played 16 seasons at a position that destroys bodies.

Jim Brown walked away from the game at 29, Sanders and Campbell at 30. James was finished at 31, Faulk, Martin, Simpson and Tomlinson at 32, Dickerson at 33 and Dorsett, Payton and Thomas at 34. Smith made it to 35 and Peterson to 36.

Allen rushed for 11 touchdowns and passed for two more scores when he was 37.

Next up, his running. Allen became college football’s first 2,000-yard rusher in his Heisman Trophy season in 1981 — and his 2,342 yards that year still rank third-best in NCAA history. His 1,759 yards in 1985 led the NFL in rushing. He had touchdown runs in his career of 61 and 52 yards and who can forget his 74-yard jaunt that broke the back of the Washington Redskins in the 1984 Super Bowl?

Let’s focus on a dimension of his running – short yardage. Allen may have been the greatest short-yardage back in NFL history. At 6-2, 210 pounds, he could go over, around or through a stacked front. Fifty-seven of his 123 rushing touchdowns were from one-yard out. He has going to get the ball on the goal line, defenses knew it and they still couldn’t stop him.

Next up, his receiving. He caught 587 passes during an era when first down was not a passing down. Only three backs in NFL history caught more passes. And his quantity was packed with quality. Allen had receptions of 73, 58, 43, 36 and 30 yards among his 21 career touchdowns.

Next up, passing. Allen was a high-school quarterback, so the halfback pass was always in his NFL offense’s playbook. He completed 12 career passes in the NFL with six for touchdowns, including strikes of 42 and 21 yards.

Next up, blocking. Allen was the fullback and lead blocker as a sophomore at Southern Cal in 1979 when his teammate Charles White rushed for 1,803 yards in winning the Heisman Trophy. The Raiders saw that fullback potential when they drafted him in 1982.

“We felt we could play him at halfback or fullback,” said Hall-of-Famer Tom Flores, who coached the Raiders then. “If we wanted him to, he could go up to 215 or 220 (pounds) and be a great fullback. In fact, when we drafted him, we thought that was a possibility because we were a fullback-oriented running team at that point.”

Allen could easily have followed in the legacy footsteps of Hewritt Dixon, Marv Hubbard and Mark van Eeghen. The Raiders won two Super Bowls to that point and their leading rusher in both seasons was a fullback.

But once on campus, the Raiders saw the same natural running skills of their first great back – a halfback from the AFL era.

“You have to go back a long way to Clemon Daniels for that type of back,” Flores said. “We’d been trying to find a back like that for a long time. But you don’t get a back like that when you’re drafting 23^rd or 24^th where we’d normally been drafting. You have to lose a few games and almost your job to get a back like that. We almost did both.”

Coming off a Super Bowl season in 1980, the Raiders struggled at the quarterback position in 1981, finishing in fourth place of the AFC West with a 7-9 record.

Despite – or maybe because of his Heisman Trophy – Allen slid to the Raiders with the 10^th overall pick of the 1982 draft. Two running backs were selected before him – Darrin Nelson by the Minnesota Vikings at seven and Gerald Riggs by the Atlanta Falcons at 9.

“We stole Marcus,” Flores said, “and the only reason we stole him was because a lot of teams didn’t scout him properly. He was the top back. But they were concerned about the Heisman Trophy jinx. Southern Cal tailbacks hadn’t turned out since O.J. And they were concerned about his speed. They said he wasn’t fast enough. He wasn’t a burner like Tony Dorsett.

“But we never timed him. We thought he was fast enough. We saw him run away from people. We knew he wasn’t a 4.4 or a 4.5 guy. We knew he was a good blocker because he had done a lot of blocking as an underclassman. Also, the thing that hadn’t been tapped was his pass-catching ability. We just felt good about him. I thought he’d be a great back in our system.”

And Flores wasn’t alone in that thinking.

“I cried anytime anyone passed him up (in the first nine picks),” said Dan Reeves, the coach of the Denver Broncos at the time. “The last team I wanted to see him go to was the Raiders. I knew there was a big question about how fast Allen was. But when you rush for 200 yards as many times as he did… I thought he was a great player. I felt like he was the best athlete available that year and to last until the 10^th pick – somebody had to be looking out for the Raiders. Allen was an ideal back for them. I hated to see him go there.”

Marcus Allen became a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He was a great back on the field and he remains a great back on paper now. In any discussion of the greatest running backs in NFL history, don’t forget Marcus Allen. He belongs in the conversation.