Allen Sidelined for at Least Six Weeks

As expected, the Raiders placed Marcus Allen on injured reserve Friday, which means he will be sidelined for at least six weeks.

Allen’s spot on the roster was filled by safety Derrick Crudup.

Allen suffered a partial tear of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee last Monday night against the Jets. The Raiders first reported that Allen would be sidelined for only two weeks, but acknowledged the severity of the injury the next day when Coach Art Shell said Allen was a candidate to go on injured reserve.

Allen leaves the lineup as the team’s leading rusher, with a 4.2 average, and tied for the team lead in pass receptions with Mervyn Fernandez at 18.

Vance Mueller will start Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs, with Bo Jackson scheduled for backup duty. How much Jackson will be used remains to be seen. Shell said last week that Jackson wouldn’t be thrown in cold simply because Allen is sidelined.

However, in his debut a year ago, Jackson didn’t start--but entered the game on the second play, carried on the next three in a row and had 21 carries overall, four days after arriving in El Segundo.

For Allen, who is 29 and on the option year of his contract, the injury is the most serious of his career. Allen has never missed more than two games in a season before this one.

He has been hampered by injuries in each of the last four seasons, playing in 1988 with a cast on his broken left wrist. Despite that, his teammates have voted him the team’s most valuable player four times since 1984.

The injury headed off an awkward situation for Shell. Allen had said that he didn’t intend to move to fullback when Jackson arrived, as Allen had for the previous two seasons.

“I’ve been too nice a guy,” Allen had said. “I’ve been trying to make everyone happy and I’ve made myself miserable.”

Shell noted that Allen had volunteered to switch in the first place, suggesting that he would have alternated Allen and Jackson as much as pairing them up.