George Allen's 1976 Rankings of Linebackers

 By John Turney

In the least of a series, we present George Allen's ranking of linebackers. He lists middle linebackers and outside linebackers and then lists the best backups.

For Allen "Stub" is a strong-side backer, or some coaches call this a "SAM".  His "Buck" is the same as a "Will" or weakside linebacker. Mac is his term for middle linebacker, which is often called the "Mike".

George Allen's Offensive Line Ratings for 1976

 By John Turney

We've posted the defensive backs and the defensive linemen. Here are Allen's rating for the offensive linemen, again, like the defensive linemen this is not a complete list but perhaps who they scouted for the 1977 season. 

Centers

Left Guards

Right Guards

Tackles

George Allen's 1976 Rankings of 'Rushmen'

 By John Turney

We've posted George Allen's rankings of defensive backs recently and today we are posting his rakings for the "rushmen" or defensive linemen. His term is "rushmen" since he used to say "If a defensive lineman can't rush the passer he is stealing"

This does not appear to be a complete list, however. Missing is his own team and also the Pittsburgh Steelers, the  Baltimore Colts, and several others. We don't have an explanation for that since his defensive back ratings were complete. 

But, we thought we'd share it anyway.

George Allen's Grades on NFL "Dekes" From 1973

 By John Turney

Dick Anderson and Jake Scott by Bart Forbes

Yesterday we posted George Allen's grades for "Dekes" or defensive backs for the 1976 season. Today we are posting his 1973 grades.

The 1973 grades are the opposite of 1976 when the higher the number the better the grade. Allen changed his system, apparently, between 1974-76. In 1973 the lower the number the better the grade. The explanations are at the top of each page.

Enjoy.

Here are his grades for safeties—

Here are his grades for left and right cornerbacks

By position—

George Allen's Grades on NFL "Dekes" From 1976

 By John Turney

Art Credit: E. Keith

In the mid-1990s we got to visit, as a guest of Jennifer Allen, the home of her mother and father George to go through Allen's library and glean some facts and figures and whatever else we could from his volumes.

One of those things we found were the grades of NFL players (other than his own club). We thought our readers might like to see some of them.

Allen called defensive backs "Dekes" and his names for the specific players were "Lou" for left corner, "Rose" for right corner, "Jill" for weak safety, and "Sam" for strong safety.

Here is his scoring system and explanations—

Here is a chart of the 1976 starters with grades—

Here are the units graded as a whole—

Here are the top strong safeties—

Here are the top free safeties—

Here are the backups—

Here are the right cornerbacks with grades—

Here are the left cornerbacks (Lous) with grades—

Here are the backups ar corner, both left and right—