Paul Allen, the radio announcer of the Minnesota Vikings since 2002, was featured Wednesday night in an NFL Films special celebrating his viral career.
The feature starts in Buffalo recapping a historic game for the Vikings from the view of Allen with his calls looped in. After his highlights from the Vikings' 33-30 overtime win in Buffalo last November went viral, Allen received plenty of praise nationally.
"I went to bed and then I woke up the next morning, about four in the morning, I never wake up that early, and I open my computer and there's that tweet from LeBron. The tweet said, 'Wow!!!! Paul Allen is a National Treasure!!'," said Allen, recollecting on the viral calls. "The Twitter followers and everything associated with it was rolling like a slot machine. I had never seen anything like that."
Ironically, it was his emotional calls that he feared would cost him his job with the Vikings.
"By 2003, my second season, if we beat the Cardinals we win the division," continued Allen. "If we don't, Green Bay wins the division. The season came down to Josh McCown finding Nathan Poole and they beat us. At the end of the call I scream, 'No! No! The Cardinals have knocked the Vikings out of the playoffs.' The owner at that time, Red McCombs, hated it. He thought it was way over the top. He was sour that the team lost. So I sweat between '03 and '04 whether I was going to get to keep the job."
"[Vikings ownership] know where my heart is," Allen continued. "They know how much I love the team. They know that I'm never going to get personal. But they also know that I'm a black and white individual. And if it's bad, it's bad. And if [Brett Favre] throws across his body when we're that close to getting to the Super Bowl, I'm going to lose my mind."
Twenty years and many legendary calls later, Allen is still in the booth calling games.
"To have done this job, having not gone to college, auditioned for it, racetrack-raised, it's an unbelievable honor to hear my calls from over the years," Allen said. "Hard to believe but I don't even know what to say."
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