If you walked into the Washington Redskins' facility in 1971, you probably would’ve seen a man with a frantic look in his eyes, clutching a glass of milk and a handful of vitamins. That was George Allen. He didn't just coach football; he lived it with a kind of desperate, vibrating intensity that most people today would find completely unhealthy.
Honestly, the george allen football coach legacy is usually boiled down to one phrase: "The Future Is Now." People think that just meant he liked old players. But it was way more radical than that. He was basically the first guy to treat an NFL roster like a high-stakes stock portfolio where you sell everything for a win on Sunday. He didn't care about 1980. He cared about the next three hours.
Why He Hated Rookies (And Loved the "Over-the-Hill Gang")
Most coaches treat the NFL Draft like Christmas morning. George Allen treated it like a chore he wanted to skip. During his twelve seasons as a head coach with the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins, he made a staggering 131 trades. Think about that. That's more than ten trades a year, every year, for over a decade.
He once famously said, "Every time you win, you're reborn. When you lose, you die a little." He wasn't joking. To avoid that "death," he gathered a group in Washington that the media dubbed the Over-the-Hill Gang.
- The logic: Why wait three years for a rookie to learn how to read a blitz when you can trade for a 33-year-old veteran who already knows the league's secrets?
- The result: In 1972, he took a team with an average starting age of nearly 31 to Super Bowl VII.
- The risk: He left the cupboards bare. When he left a team, they usually didn't have a first-round pick for years.
He didn't just want veterans; he wanted his veterans. When he moved from the Rams to Washington in 1971, he brought half the Los Angeles roster with him. Names like Jack Pardee, Myron Pottios, and Diron Talbert followed him East. It was less of a coaching change and more of a franchise kidnapping.
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The Real Father of Special Teams
You've probably heard that special teams are "one-third of the game." You can thank Allen for that cliché. Before him, the punt and kickoff units were where you hid the guys who weren't good enough to play offense or defense. It was an afterthought.
George Allen changed everything. He was the first george allen football coach to hire a full-time special teams coach—a guy named Dick Vermeil, who eventually won a Super Bowl himself. Later, he hired Marv Levy for the same job.
He obsessively looked for an edge. He’d hire left-footed punters just to practice against them because the ball spins differently. He believed special teams could steal two wins a year. In a league where most games are decided by a touchdown or less, he was right.
The "Milk and Ice Water" Obsession
Allen’s work ethic was legendary and, frankly, a bit terrifying. He worked 16-hour days. He’d eat peanut butter crackers at his desk because a real lunch took too much time. He didn't drink alcohol or caffeine—just milk. He thought it kept his mind sharp.
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But his intensity had a dark side. He was so focused on winning that he often clashed with owners. He’d spend money the team didn't have on "necessities" like better practice fields or specialized equipment. He once got fired by Rams owner Dan Reeves, then rehired because the players literally revolted, and then eventually left anyway because he couldn't stand being told "no."
The Strange, Tragic End at Long Beach State
There is a weird, persistent story about how George Allen died. In 1990, after a long hiatus from the NFL, he took a job at Long Beach State. The program was a mess. They hadn't had a winning season in years.
True to form, Allen turned them around immediately. After the final game of the season—a win over UNLV—his players gave him a traditional Gatorade bucket shower. But it wasn't Gatorade; it was ice water. And it was a cold November day.
Allen got sick. He reportedly told people he "hadn't been right" since that soaking. He died of ventricular fibrillation about six weeks later, on New Year's Eve. While doctors haven't officially blamed the bucket of water, the timing is haunted. He died just as he had lived: winning a game and pushing his body past its limits.
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What George Allen Teaches Us Today
You can't really copy Allen anymore. The salary cap and modern free agency make his "trade every draft pick" strategy almost impossible. But his core philosophies still echo through the league.
- Detail is everything. If you aren't looking at the spin of the ball or the way the wind blows through a specific stadium, you aren't trying hard enough.
- Culture beats youth. Talent is great, but a room full of veterans who know how to win will beat a group of "high-potential" kids every time in a pressure cooker.
- Special teams are a weapon. Look at the best teams in the NFL today; they almost all have elite specialists.
George Allen finished his NFL career with a 116-47-5 record. He never had a losing season. Not one. In a sport designed to force everyone toward .500, that is a statistical anomaly that feels almost impossible. He was a man who refused to accept the future if it meant losing today.
If you want to apply the "Allen Way" to your own life or business, start by auditing where you're wasting time on "potential" instead of "proven results." Stop waiting for the perfect rookie and find the veteran who can get the job done this afternoon. As George would say, the future is now—don't waste it waiting for tomorrow.
Next Steps for the History Buff: Check out the Pro Football Hall of Fame's digital archives on the 1972 Washington Redskins to see the specific trade charts Allen used to build the "Over-the-Hill Gang." You can also research the career of his son, George Allen Jr., who took his father's "winning" mindset into a completely different arena: Virginia politics.