There was apparently an urban legend at one point that André The Giant was close to signing with the Washington R[redacted] NFL team, which sort of started in the above photo of him and Joe Theismann in the ’70s. While there’s never been any confirmation of the potential deal, Theismann seems to be under the impression that André was damn near a Red[redacted]. Washington Post has the story:
“I will say this though: one of the forerunners of football 12 months a year was George Allen, our old coach with the Redskins,” Theismann said. “George used to try and make some kind of a big deal, usually in the first two weeks of May. I remember one year he sent me to New York to Toots Shor’s, and I got a picture taken — and you can look it up online, — with Andre the Giant.
“[Allen] had talked to Vince McMahon Sr.,” Theismann went on. “This was the type of progressive mind that he had; he talked to Vince McMahon Sr. and said ‘Look, I’m thinking about maybe bringing Andre the Giant in, signing him, so that he can come in and block field goals and extra points for us.’ Now, I don’t know whether it was true or not, but if you look up the picture, I look like an infant. Is that unbelievable or what? Look at his head! And I’ll tell you something, I shook his hand and I lost my arm. I mean, it went all the way up to my elbow. I had no forearm or anything.
I don’t know if Vince, Sr. would have allowed André to play football, but that sounds like something Vince, Jr. would have eaten up. However, I bet everyone at WWE is still probably scared to say “football” in front of the owner. Apparently, André was a hellacious athlete, so he probably could have pulled football off.
