Gold Jacket Spotlight: Larry Allen wanted to 'make the other guy quit'

Anyone who ever thought about taking the day off from work to avoid an unpleasant task can appreciate the chore of playing across from Class of 2013 Hall of Famer LARRY ALLEN.

As an elite offensive lineman, Larry triggered several defensive opponents to make themselves unavailable on game day.

“Dallas coaches and players talked about opposing players contracting ‘Larry Allen flu’ late in the week before playing the Cowboys, an escape from the pain they would incur had they suited up,” Jim Thomas, a former writer at the Canton Repository, once wrote.

This week’s Gold Jacket Spotlight shines on Larry, who in 1998 told Jean-Jacques Taylor of the Dallas Morning News, “My objective is to make the other guy quit.”

Larry’s ability encouraged opponents to consider options other than face someone held in awe for his special blend of brute strength, quickness and smarts.

In 2013, Football Nation reported that, “Former San Francisco 49ers coach, Steve Mariucci, recently talked about Larry Allen in an interview on Sirius Satellite Radio. ‘He was dominant. We had a player in San Francisco. A good defensive lineman. I will never mention him by name, but the week we were playing the Dallas Cowboys, that Saturday, he came down with the 24-hour flu and couldn’t play the next day.”

“There were several other stories of how players would lie about injury and fake sickness to avoid looking across at a man who once benched 700 pounds,” Football Nation declared.

“You didn’t sleep easy the night before, hoping you get to play against Larry Allen,” Hall of Fame coach and television analyst JOHN MADDEN told ESPN Dallas. “They knew it. There’s no pro football player that has a fear of another guy that plays on that level, but he was so doggone strong and there wasn’t much you could do against him.”

“Allen’s the complete package,” the Dallas Cowboys Official Weekly wrote in 1999.

During his 14-season career, Larry played every position on the offensive line other than center.

Larry’s strength, balance, reaction, quickness, attention to detail and confident demeanor on the field were among the variables cited by coaches and teammates in assessing his professional success.

“He had everything,” Madden told “Blue Star.”

“That was the thing he had. He had strength, and he knew how to use it. There are a lot of guys that have strength and power and don’t use it. There are other guys that don’t have it and go out and get beat. He was the type of guy that could use it at the line of scrimmage and use that in space. He could pull and get at defensive backs downfield and he could block at the point of attack and pass protect. You don’t say he had one thing. He had everything.”

During team film sessions, teammates enjoyed watching Larry’s dominating performances.

“I love it,” teammate and Hall of Famer EMMITT SMITH told the Dallas Morning News. “When we’re watching tape, I just die laughing at what Larry Allen does to those other guys every week.”

Larry’s trademark, the Morning News observed, was “framing” his opponents, which occurs when Larry blocked them so far out of the play they no longer appear on screen — in the frame.

“You might see that in high school and college,” Cowboys quarterback and Hall of Famer TROY AIKMAN acknowledged, “but you don’t see that too often at this level.”

Chan Gailey, Dallas head coach from 1998-99, believed, “He wants to make the other guy look bad. When the game is over, he wants the guy to know he has been whipped.”

Or make that other guy wish he had taken the day off.