Imagine being an NFL defensive lineman, weighing nearly 300 pounds yourself, lining up across from Larry Allen and knowing exactly what was about to happen.
Then imagine being unable to do anything about it.
Larry Allen might have been the strongest man to ever step onto an NFL field.
Stories about Allen’s strength sound less like football history and more like mythology. The legendary 700-pound bench press. The massive arms. The ability to grab enormous defensive linemen and move them somewhere they had absolutely no intention of going.
But calling Larry Allen simply a strong offensive lineman would actually undersell him.
Allen wasn’t just powerful. He was explosive, athletic, technically brilliant and versatile enough to dominate at multiple positions across the offensive line. At roughly 325 pounds, he possessed the raw strength of a powerlifter while moving with an athleticism that shouldn’t have existed in a body that large.
For more than a decade, some of the biggest and strongest defensive players in football lined up across from him.
Most of them lost.
At #2 on the Ethical Sports Takes list of the greatest offensive linemen in NFL history, Larry Allen was football’s ultimate combination of power and athleticism.
The Strongest Man in Football
Let’s start with the obvious.
Larry Allen was absurdly strong.
During his career, Allen became famous for his incredible performances in the weight room. The most legendary came when he bench-pressed 700 pounds, with teammates surrounding him as he completed the lift.
Seven hundred pounds.
That number sounds ridiculous even for a professional offensive lineman.
Allen’s strength became part of his identity, but the important thing is that it wasn’t useless weight-room strength. Once the game started, that power transferred directly onto the field.
When Allen got proper leverage and locked his hands onto a defender, he could physically control another NFL-sized human being. Defensive tackles who were accustomed to bullying offensive linemen suddenly found themselves going backward.
Sometimes significantly backward.
Allen could collapse an entire side of a defensive front. He could open running lanes through brute force. He could absorb powerful pass rushers without surrendering the middle of the pocket.
Defensive linemen knew exactly what kind of battle was coming.
Larry Allen was going to try to move you against your will.
Good luck stopping him.
Wait… He Could Move Too?
This is where Larry Allen became unfair.
A player that strong shouldn’t also have been that athletic.
One of the most famous plays of Allen’s career came during his rookie season in 1994. After New Orleans Saints linebacker Darion Conner intercepted Troy Aikman, Conner appeared to have open field ahead of him.
Then something ridiculous happened.
Larry Allen chased him down.
A massive offensive lineman sprinted downfield and caught a linebacker from behind to prevent the touchdown.
It remains one of the defining clips of Allen’s career because it perfectly captures what made him different.
The 700-pound bench press tells you about the strength.
That chase-down tells you about the athlete.
Put those two things together and you begin to understand why defensive linemen had such a miserable assignment when #73 lined up across from them.
Move Him Wherever You Want
Allen’s greatness wasn’t limited to one position.
Throughout his career, he played left guard, right guard, left tackle and right tackle, giving Dallas an extraordinary amount of flexibility across its offensive line.
Need him inside?
Dominant.
Need him outside?
Still dominant.
That versatility is especially impressive because guard and tackle demand different skills. Playing inside means dealing with immediate power and traffic. Playing tackle requires the footwork and athleticism to handle explosive edge rushers in space.
Allen could do both.
His natural home became guard, where his overwhelming strength and explosiveness could completely take over games, but his ability to move around the offensive line showed how complete a player he really was.
He wasn’t simply the strongest offensive lineman.
He was one of the most skilled.
Running Behind #73
The Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s were built around one of the greatest rushing attacks football has ever seen.
Emmitt Smith deserves every bit of credit for becoming the NFL’s all-time leading rusher.
But running backs don’t reach those numbers alone.
Behind Smith stood one of football’s great offensive lines, and Larry Allen became its most physically overwhelming presence.
Allen could create movement at the line of scrimmage that changed the geometry of a running play. A gap that looked closed before the snap could suddenly become a highway because Allen had driven the defender several yards away from where he started.
When Allen pulled into space, things became even worse for defenders.
Imagine being a linebacker standing at the second level and seeing 325 pounds of Larry Allen accelerating toward you.
At that point, your job description had changed.
You weren’t trying to make a tackle anymore.
You were trying to survive the collision.
The Résumé
The weight-room stories are fun, but Larry Allen’s actual football résumé is what puts him this high.
Pro Football Hall of Fame — Class of 2013
6× First-Team All-Pro
1× Second-Team All-Pro
11× Pro Bowl selection
Super Bowl XXX Champion
NFL 1990s All-Decade Team
NFL 2000s All-Decade Team
NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team
Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor
More than 200 NFL games played
Allen’s selection to both the 1990s and 2000s All-Decade Teams tells the story of his longevity.
This wasn’t a player who overwhelmed the NFL for three or four seasons and disappeared.
He dominated across eras.
Allen entered the league in 1994 and remained an elite offensive lineman deep into the following decade. Different defensive linemen came along. Different schemes became popular. Football evolved.
The problem standing across from them remained the same.
#73.
From Second-Round Pick to First-Ballot Hall of Famer
Allen didn’t arrive in the NFL as some can’t-miss superstar from one of college football’s biggest programs.
He played at Sonoma State, a small Division II school, before Dallas selected him in the second round of the 1994 NFL Draft.
Then the rest of the league discovered what Dallas had found.
Allen became a starter as a rookie and quickly developed into one of football’s premier offensive linemen. By his second season, he was a Pro Bowler and a Super Bowl champion.
From there, the accolades kept coming.
When Allen became eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013, there wasn’t much reason to wait.
He went in on the first ballot.
A second-round pick from Sonoma State had become one of the greatest offensive linemen professional football had ever seen.
The Ultimate Physical Mismatch
What made Larry Allen special wasn’t any single attribute.
It was the combination.
If Allen had only possessed legendary strength, he could have been a very good offensive lineman.
If he had only possessed exceptional athleticism at 325 pounds, he could have been a very good offensive lineman.
If he had only possessed excellent technique and versatility, he could have been a very good offensive lineman.
Instead, Larry Allen had all of it.
He had the strength to overpower defensive tackles, the feet to survive at tackle, the speed to chase down a linebacker, the versatility to move around the offensive line and the technique to turn all those physical gifts into sustained dominance.
That’s why the 700-pound bench press isn’t the reason Larry Allen ranks this high.
It’s simply the perfect symbol for what he was.
Overwhelming power.
Football’s Strongest Man
There is something beautifully simple about Larry Allen’s game.
Football can become incredibly complicated. Coaches design elaborate schemes. Defenses disguise pressure. Offensive linemen study fronts, protections and assignments.
Eventually, however, football comes down to one man trying to move another man.
And very few people in the history of the sport were better equipped for that fight than Larry Allen.
His strength became legendary. His athleticism made that strength terrifying. His technique allowed him to use both, and his consistency turned those abilities into a Hall of Fame career.
Eleven Pro Bowls.
Six First-Team All-Pro selections.
Two All-Decade Teams.
A Super Bowl championship.
A spot on the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
And one famous 700-pound bench press that still sounds completely insane.
At #2 on the Ethical Sports Takes list of the greatest offensive linemen in NFL history, Larry Allen stands as one of the most physically dominant players football has ever produced.
Plenty of defenders entered a game believing they were strong.
Then they lined up across from #73.
Larry Allen showed them what strong really meant.
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