JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — With a 17 1/2-sack season, a second Professional Bowl look and a brand new contract that made him soccer’s highest-paid outdoors linebacker, Josh Allen indisputably had grow to be a giant identify within the NFL. However not precisely like he wished.
He typically was known as “the different Josh Allen,” with the extra well-known one quarterbacking the Buffalo Payments.
The Jacksonville Jaguars move rusher and his spouse, Kaitlyn, watched highlights of this yr’s Professional Bowl Video games and listened to a commentator discuss with “Aidan Hutchinson and Josh … Allen?”
“It was nearly like she was confused about who I used to be,” he says.
She wasn’t the one one. Kaitlyn wished to know the place her husband’s jerseys had been being offered and discovered they had been as tough to search out as disinfecting wipes throughout the pandemic. The 27-year-old, five-year NFL veteran and father of three had thought-about altering his identify for a few years. Now his spouse began pushing for it.
His 4 older sisters have a special final identify, Hines-Allen, incorporating their mom Kim’s maiden identify. When Josh and twin brother Isaiah had been born, their father, Robert, wished the boys to be Allens. Kim and Robert divorced when Josh was a child, and his dad wasn’t round a lot, so the boys had been raised and formed by Hineses. In his New Jersey neighborhood, Josh was generally known as “Little Hines.”
So within the offseason, Josh employed a advertising agent and a lawyer. He waited in strains on the courthouse that serves Duval County. There have been stacks of kinds to fill out. He needed to confirm the addresses of each place he lived from delivery to the current. He was required to determine all his members of the family, in addition to their residences and ages. Adjustments needed to be made to his driver’s license, Social Safety data and tax returns.
In July, his advertising staff launched a video saying the change, and a brand new teal nameplate was positioned above his locker. It was then that Josh Hines-Allen grew to become who he was meant to be.
A former professional basketball participant, uncle Greg “Dunkin’” Hines (left) is a towering determine in Josh Hines-Allen’s life. (Courtesy of Greg Hines)
The brand new identify is about how he hopes to raise. And it’s about what grounds him.
Morris Hines was a pressure. Thought-about a hoops legend on the streets of their New Jersey neighborhood, Morris based a basketball staff on the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark and instilled a love of sports activities in his descendants, together with his grandson Josh. Morris taught Josh to shadowbox. He used to say, “Lower them deep and allow them to bleed.” Josh has it tattooed on his inside arm. Josh discovered to tie a tie from Morris. In reality, he has tied teammates’ ties and taught them the way in which Morris did it.
“He’s one of many greatest explanation why I’m the way in which I’m mentally and competitively,” Josh says.
Morris’ oldest son, Greg, was extra father determine for Josh than uncle. He was additionally a legendary basketball participant and an instance of how sports activities may change a life. “Dunkin’ Hines” was a dominating large man at Hampton College and an inaugural member of the Hampton Athletics Corridor of Fame. A fifth-round choose of the Golden State Warriors, Hines by no means made the NBA however performed professionally for 12 years.
At 12, Josh was the one man in the home with Isaiah dwelling in Alabama with kinfolk. His sisters had been driving him loopy by “momming” him.
“It was simply pitiful,” he says. “I used to be already going to highschool, after which at residence they made me go to ‘class’ with them as my lecturers. It was simply because they wished to. We had math, science and recess.”
Determined to get out of his home, Josh moved in with Dunkin’ Hines, who took Josh and his soiled garments to the laundromat and taught him learn how to wash, dry and fold them. Josh discovered to depend the cash they saved in a jar and convert them to money at an trade machine. Hines made him feed and clear up after Blazer, his white boxer.
Josh and Hines imitated the WWE wrestlers Josh watched on “SmackDown” and “Uncooked,” making an attempt to make the opposite faucet out. At 6-foot-9, 280 kilos, Hines had a big benefit, which taught Josh to make use of leverage and his fast, sturdy palms.
“These nights had been so superior,” Josh says.
Hines schooled Josh on the basketball courtroom, the place he remembers his nephew as a mean ballhandler however sturdy and really athletic for his dimension, with a knack for rebounds, free balls and protection. When Josh obtained pissed off with basketball, Hines signed him up for soccer for the primary time.
When Josh moved in, Hines was a bachelor having fun with the privileges of freedom and fame. He thought Josh wanted some faith, so each Sunday morning, they walked to Rising Mount Zion Baptist Church in Montclair, the place collectively, they skilled wonderful grace.
“I had no construction, no obligations in my life,” Hines says. “That grounding, retaining God within the heart of our lives, helped us each out.”
Josh additionally seemed as much as Keith Hines, Greg’s brother and Kim’s twin. Nieces and nephews known as Keith “The Basic” as a result of he didn’t fiddle. Basketball was in his blood, too, as The Basic as soon as scored 59 factors in a highschool sport after which performed at Montclair State earlier than turning into a highschool coach.
It wasn’t simply the boys of the household who paved the way in which for Josh.
Josh’s appreciation for the pageantry of sport grew whereas sitting within the bleachers at Montclair Excessive watching his sister Torri, who would go on to play at Virginia Tech and Towson. He obtained chills each time the lights dimmed and Torri and her teammates broke by means of a poster to dazzling strobes.
“I believed it was the best factor, and it type of made me fall in love with that a part of sports activities,” he says.
Sister Kyra performed basketball at Cheyney College the way in which Josh performs soccer. “You didn’t wish to mess together with her, what I imply?” he says. “She was the shortest one in every of my sisters however the hardest, and I simply cherished the way in which she performed.”
Myisha, one yr older than Josh, performed in opposition to sixth-grade boys when she was in fourth grade. In highschool, she was a McDonald’s All-American. At Louisville, she was first-team All-ACC thrice and performed on a Remaining 4 staff. She gained a WNBA championship with the Washington Mystics in 2019 and was voted second-team all-league a yr later.
Josh’s complete athletic expertise has been about making an attempt to maintain tempo with Myisha, with whom he may by no means compete on the basketball courtroom. A yr after she was taken nineteenth within the WNBA draft, he wished to be drafted larger, which he was (seventh). Now he’s decided to win a championship like she did — and to one-up her by being voted first-team all-league.
Myisha and Josh weren’t shut after they had been younger, however their relationship has grown as skilled athletes.
“I attempt to give her motivation, lead her down a very good path and assist maintain her thoughts proper,” Josh says. “She does the identical for me.”
Myisha Hines-Allen (left) gained a WNBA championship in 2019 as a member of the Washington Mystics. (Ethan Miller / Getty Photographs)
Shortly earlier than the Jaguars play the Payments in September, Josh plans to supply followers a possibility to swap previous “Allen” jerseys for brand new “Hines-Allen” ones at a reduced worth. It’s a very good week to do it as a result of the sport is on a Monday night time and the gamers have a bit additional time — plus his opponent is the opposite Josh Allen.
They’ve by no means swapped jerseys with each other. They haven’t exchanged cellphone numbers both and even pleasantries.
“I don’t assume he likes me,” Hines-Allen says. “After the primary time we performed them, he walked proper by me, by no means stated something. By the second time, I didn’t actually care.”
If the quarterback is resentful, he has motive. Hines-Allen has helped stop him from successful each video games they’ve performed in opposition to each other. Within the first sport, a 9-6 victory in 2021, the Jaguars linebacker sacked and intercepted the Payments quarterback in addition to recovered his fumble. And the Jaguars prevailed within the second “Josh Allen Bowl” by a 25-20 rating.
These video games weren’t simply any video games to Hines-Allen.
“It was type of like a respect factor — you need to earn the respect,” says Hines-Allen, who vows by no means to lose to the Payments QB. “I really feel like I did, but when we didn’t win, it will have been like, ‘Oh, and also you lose to him?’ It undoubtedly introduced out a bit additional in me as a result of my identify is my identify. I respect all and need the identical factor given to me.”
If Hines-Allen breaks the NFL sack report of twenty-two 1/2 — which he intends to do — extra respect will come. He rushes the passer with excessive dynamism and unpredictable gusts, making him about as simple to carry again as a tornado. He had 17 sacks in 13 video games at Kentucky and 22 1/2 in 12 video games at Montclair Excessive. Getting 5 1/2 greater than he did in 2023 doesn’t appear unreasonable to him.
His pursuit of the report can be abetted, he believes, by dropping much less and speeding extra within the scheme run by new Jaguars defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen. Head coach Doug Pederson envisions Hines-Allen “pushing that 20-plus sack vary” with extra help from his staff.
“He’s a kind of guys who reveals up early and stays late,” says Pederson, who just lately grew to become Hines-Allen’s neighbor when the linebacker purchased a home close to his coach’s. “He has the willpower to be nice.”
He employed a chef to arrange his meals and sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber for about 5 hours each night time. He brings the machine to street video games, together with a specialist to manage intravenous fluids, and his private bodily therapist.
Throughout his pregame routine, he makes himself the one individual in a crowd of hundreds by carrying noise-canceling headphones and listening to nothing however silence. He’s usually gregarious, with a straightforward smile and hugs throughout. However there’s a darkish facet.
“I’m offended,” he says. “I had an excellent season final yr, however the one factor I obtained was a Professional Bowl. I’m pissed as a result of y’all assume I’m alleged to be blissful. I’m pissed as a result of I wasn’t All-Professional. I’m pissed as a result of I wasn’t a nominee for defensive participant of the yr. I’m pissed as a result of my staff didn’t make the playoffs.”
So now there are quarterbacks to pound, honors to earn, triumphs available, a legacy to uphold and one other to create. And opponents who studied 2023 tape will understand the linebacker throughout from them is just not the identical one who wore No. 41 final yr.
That is Josh Hines-Allen.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photograph: Cooper Neill / Getty Photographs)