Ex-Viking Jared Allen's Hall of Fame nod punctuates a career defined by maturation

New York Times

4 days ago

One Halloween, Jared Allen dressed the way a younger iteration of Jared Allen would dress.
The formal description of his ensemble was a well-tailored wrestling singlet. The less formal — and more accurate — depiction was Sacha Baron Cohen's bathing suit from the movie 'Borat.'
On an otherwise quiet morning inside the Kansas City Chiefs locker room, a door swung open, and there Allen came. There were gasps and shrieks and squeals.
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'I heard lots of stories about that string bikini from other players,' Allen's longtime agent, Ken Harris, said recently. 'They're like, 'Your guy is absolutely crazy.''
Allen, the former defensive end who this weekend will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, gave no reason to think otherwise. He told reporters stories about hunting 200-pound wild boars with knives. He jogged alongside bulls in Spain. Long before he'd finish compiling his 136 NFL sacks and four first-team All-Pro honors, he'd dress like a beer-bellied Elvis, hop in his 1969 powder-blue Cadillac and cruise around town.
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This is often when the trouble occurred, when Allen's decisions poured gasoline on the simmering problem-child narrative. He was arrested for drunk driving and speeding in May 2006. Five months later, police busted Allen again for DUI. Former Chiefs president and general manager Carl Peterson described Allen, then 24, as 'a young man at risk,' which contributed to a contract spat. The Chiefs escalated tension in the relationship by applying the franchise tag.
'At one point, somebody with the Chiefs told us, 'We've got the tag on him, and don't ever forget, we're the bank,'' Harris recalled. 'You can't say that to Jared Allen. If you say that to Jared Allen, bad things happen.'
The bad things for Kansas City became positive things for Minnesota — and Allen.
Harris, the agent, introduced the idea of Allen spending his franchise-tag season as a sideline reporter. The Chiefs then retracted their trade demand of two first-round picks. The Vikings' brain trust, comprised of former general manager Rick Spielman and executives George Paton and Rob Brzezinski, assembled the plan. Paton focused on Allen's playing fit. Brzezinski sifted through the financial ramifications. Spielman blessed the vision. Why roll the dice on an inexperienced defensive end in the draft if they could acquire a guy who had just started 55 games and recorded 43 sacks in four seasons?
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The Vikings still needed to recruit Allen, so the franchise ownership met with him and Harris. At one point, Harris' phone buzzed with messages from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Vikings executives noticed.
Allen and Harris exited the Minnesota facility without a final agreement on contract terms. But that night, Brzezinski phoned Harris and asked to meet him in the lobby of the downtown Hilton. They resumed their conversations from earlier in the day, at one point even scribbling number figures reaching eight digits on a tiny napkin.
Leaning in closer because of the noise from tables around them, Harris remembered Brzezinski asking, 'Do you think anybody would ever imagine we're talking about tens of millions of dollars?'
'I guarantee you nobody has any idea,' Harris said. 'They just think we're two schmucks at the bar talking.'
Harris added, 'The schmucks comment was true; not for Rob, but for me. I do want to say, though, that trio of Rick and Rob and George made it happen. We went in there and just fell in love with these guys as well as ownership.'
Many of the Vikings players were initially skeptical of the man who had netted the then-record-breaking, six-year, $73,260,069 deal. Was Allen committed enough? Was football just the vehicle for an unsustainable lifestyle?
Vikings veterans Pat Williams and Kevin Williams, who took Allen out to dinner at the end of his first official day, wondered whether he'd be attentive enough against the run. They cornered him on the subject at Redstone American Grill in Eden Prairie. His charisma won them over. Hearing Allen talk about realizing he didn't have to live life on the edge to become his best self version of himself secured their belief.
On the field, he erased any remaining doubt. He sprang off the line of scrimmage like a sprinter with a shotgun start. He bent his body in ways a 6-foot-6, 270-pound frame shouldn't bend. Strong hands aren't a powerful enough descriptor; he swiped tackles' arms with smarts, knowing where and when they were susceptible.
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He wasn't operating at random. Allen spent countless hours studying Derrick Thomas, Reggie White and Leslie O'Neal.
'I think people have this idea that he was just a guy who played with great energy and was relentless and had this motor,' former teammate Ben Leber said. 'All of those things are true, but he approached the game from a strategic standpoint.'
Never was Allen more excited to deploy his strategies than against the Detroit Lions. Their offensive linemen jawed constantly, Leber said, and Allen barbed in return. He also swarmed. Vikings coach Brad Childress' favorite memory is Allen chasing current ESPN broadcaster Dan Orlovsky out of the back of the end zone.
'And if I saw Dan Orlovsky in a bar this afternoon,' Childress said recently, 'I would give him s— about it until I walked out of the bar.'
Like Allen's teammates, Childress revered his energy and enthusiasm. Football seasons drag. When the teammate Mario Kart battles subside, as they did with the Vikings, you need a guy who can replace them with intense games of Yahtzee. You need a person who, while toned down outside the locker room, keeps the room free in every sense of the word.
Heading to the Hall of Fame!
Congratulations, Jared Allen! pic.twitter.com/83rcVqT9K1
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) February 7, 2025
'He was always prone to run around unclothed,' Kevin Williams said, cackling on the other end of the phone.
'I hate to admit it,' Leber added, 'but he wasn't shy. He was not shy in the locker room. I'm not sure (Allen's wife) Amy is going to love these stories, but she didn't meet Jared 1.0. She met Jared 2.0.'
The couple married in 2010. The arrival of their first child, a girl named Brinley, coincided with her father's best season, and one of the most productive in NFL history. Allen notched 22 sacks in 2011, a Vikings record that remains. It's tied for the third-most sacks in a single season in NFL history.
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This degree of dominance planted the seeds for a trip to Canton, Ohio, that didn't come easily. The Pro Football Hall of Fame first named him a finalist in 2021. Four years later, he finally received enough votes to be elected.
He joked a few months ago that the honor wouldn't change anything, other than forcing him to travel and give more interviews than he'd like. But the people who best know his path view the arc — going from an 8-year-old telling his father he wanted to play professionally to becoming primarily a long snapper at Idaho State to everything that would follow — as an example.
'His journey has been pretty incredible,' Leber said. 'You see this progression of not only a player but also a human being.'
As for this weekend's speech? There's a reason Harris, Williams, Leber and so many others are lining up to go. What will Allen, now 43, say? How far will he go? One of the attendees even suggested a prop.
Odds are, he'll (thankfully) wear not a well-tailored wrestling singlet but a finely stitched cowboy hat. He'll make the audience laugh. He'll tell some stories, praise those who came before him and then focus on his family. On Amy. On Brinley. On their second daughter, Lakelyn. On the group that brings his maturation to life.