How ex-NFL player hopes his football past can help topple Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate seat

Before you can fully understand Colin Allred, who recently announced he was running for U.S. Senate in Texas against Republican Ted Cruz, you need to go back to a moment in time, a remarkable moment, that took place on the practice field of the Tennessee Titans.

Allred played for the Titans from 2006-2010 and he was like so many players in the NFL. Not a star, but the lifeblood of the league, someone who played with talent and grit, but you didn't see him in ESPN highlight packages.

One day, near the end of his Titans career, he stood on the field, a neck injury he sustained in Dallas against the Cowboys preventing him from practicing, and despite so many of his teammates being around him, Allred felt alone.

"When you're hurt in the NFL," he said, "you no longer feel useful."

Then came that moment. As he stood there, he noticed something teammate Vince Young, the Titans' quarterback and one of the young stars in the league, was wearing: it was Allred's jersey. Young approached him.

"I got you, Allred," Young said.

"People ask me what do I miss about football," Allred said in an interview with USA TODAY Sports. "It's moments like that."

What football taught Allred, in high school in Dallas, then at Baylor University, and eventually the NFL, and of course in that moment, was both how to be part of a coalition, and to build one. The NFL calls it being "coachable" but it's more than that. Good NFL players aren't just physically and mentally tough, they are also selfless. They care about the greater good of the team. They want to win but not at the expense of teammates. They push boundaries and not agendas. The great franchises have more of these players than don't. Allred was one of those players that teammates trusted and respected which explains the kind gesture from Young.

As Young showed, being tough doesn't mean you lack empathy. Allred brings this belief system into his political life but he also saw it in football, of all places.

All of that, Allred says, the entire NFL package, prepared him for politics, and his Senate run against Cruz, who perhaps represents the antithesis of those values.

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"I come across people in politics who would never make it in an NFL locker room," Allred said. "We know of players who can't stay on one team because they aren't good teammates."

Allred has spoken about his NFL life on several occasions and one of them stands out. It again symbolizes who he is and why he's a respected leader. During the NFL player protests started by Colin Kaepernick in 2016, Allred penned a column defending the players after Donald Trump attacked them.

"That's why Trump's attacks on the players who are now protesting during our national anthem ring hollow to me. I played with and against some of the guys who have chosen to take a knee during the national anthem – and I know they aren't "S.O.B.'s" as Trump has called them," Allred wrote in 2017. "The people we see take the field every week are by and large thoughtful guys who are proud to wear their uniform, love this country and have done important work in their communities. Many have overcome tremendous obstacles to be where they are today, and they are thankful for the opportunities that football – and America – have given them. But they are also athletes who have internalized the ideals of the game and feel they can no longer remain silent about injustice."

Can Allred beat Cruz? "...In Allred, they now have a serious candidate," writes FiveThirtyEight.com. "The former NFL player was first elected to Congress in 2018, when he defeated an 11-term incumbent by 7 points in a historically Republican district in the Dallas suburbs. He won reelection by 6 points in 2020 before redistricting placed him in a new, dark-blue district for 2022."

So, can he win? What is definite is that Cruz will face someone hardened and seasoned by NFL life, and that makes Allred a vastly different opponent, and perhaps a highly formidable one.

"Ted Cruz doesn't represent the Texas that I know," Allred said.

Then Allred went back to those learned football lessons.

"I learned while playing sports, particularly football, which is the ultimate team sport," he said, "the value of working with people you don't agree with all the time. You learn to work with people that you ordinarily wouldn't be friends with, but you learn to value and respect those differences."

Ultimately, that's how America is supposed to work. Often it does, sometimes it does not.

Allred gets it and is himself a unifying force. Part of him being that is simply who he is as a person. But another part he learned in an NFL locker room.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ex-NFL player Colin Allred hopes football past helps topple Ted Cruz