amused
With a 10-3 lead in the final minutes of the first half, the Redskins found themselves on second down at the 49ers' 8-yard line with a chance to possibly put the game away. The Redskins ran an unusual play: a reverse for Pro Bowl wide receiver Roy Jefferson. The Niners spotted it right from the snap and tackled Jefferson for a 13-yard loss. The Redskins ended up having to try a field goal attempt that the Niners blocked. The 49ers roared back in the third quarter with two touchdowns and ended up winning the game 24-20. After the game, Allen remarked that the failed reverse was "the game's big, big play ... when we came away without any points."
For many years it was believed that the then-President Richard Nixon had called Allen to suggest that Allen run the play. Allen and Nixon were good friends. The two men met and became friends many years earlier when Allen was a coach at Whittier College. Allen was being honored at a NCAA banquet where then-Congressman Nixon was speaking. Nixon graduated from Whittier College, so he stopped to congratulate Allen and the two became friends.
When Allen was coaching the Los Angeles Rams in the mid-1960s, then-presidential candidate Nixon attended a Rams preseason game as a guest of Allen's. Nixon was quite happy when Allen came to Washington in 1971 to coach the Redskins. Nixon told the press corps, "I am betting on the Redskins for the championship in either 1971 or 1972."
The two men spoke on the phone often. Nixon loved to talk football and, as a former college player himself, Nixon was quite knowledgeable about the game. The Redskins won their first five games of the season, but when the team suffered back to back losses in weeks 6 and 7, Allen brought Nixon out to the Redskins' practice field for a surprise pep talk for the players. Allen let the president call a play on offense during practice that day. Nixon called for a reverse and the play went over well.
Following the regular season, as the Redskins were preparing for the playoff game with the 49ers, Nixon called the Redskins while Allen was in a strategy meeting with his quarterback, Billy Kilmer. Allen handed the phone to Kilmer and Nixon suggested a reverse play. When Allen called the play at the end of the second quarter, Kilmer assumed that Allen was following Nixon's suggestion. The players talked about it and the press eventually got wind of it, as well. Shirley Povich of the Washington Post was one of the first to write about it, and it became a longstanding legend.
Allen never confirmed nor denied the claim, although both of his sons, former Senator George Allen and current Redskins general manager Bruce Allen, have denied it. Kilmer's recollection is otherwise. The late Marv Levy, who was a close friend of Allen's and an assistant coach with Allen in both Los Angeles and Washington claimed that Nixon did indeed suggest the play on the phone, but he was just playing along with a gag by Allen. Levy told the Syracuse Post-Standard in 1994 that Allen had fed the play to Nixon and told him to call Allen with the play so that it would look like Allen was taking the play from Nixon. Levy said "George wanted the president to look very sage. Afterward, I remember chuckling among ourselves about it. George gave the play to the president, then it didn’t work.”