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- Mar 19, 2019
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Allen recalls 22-sack season, dishes on curling career
Former Vikings defensive end Jared Allen recently chatted with Chad Graff of The Athletic to touch on a variety of topics on Graff's podcast.
They talked about Allen's path to the NFL and his 2008 trade to the Vikings, along with his historic 22-sack season in 2011 that set a franchise single-season record.
Allen told Graff that he believes he had a chance to set the NFL single-season record but simply stumbled a bit.
Graff wrote:
But as Week 17 approached, Allen was at 18.5 sacks. He needed 3.5 to set the Vikings franchise record and 4.5 to break Michael Strahan's all-time record. He joked that week that if Bears quarterback Josh McCown wanted to pull a Brett Favre — who famously seemed to go down pretty easily to give Strahan the record-breaking sack — he'd take it.
Allen had 1.5 sacks by halftime, then notched the 21st sack of his season on the first play of the second half. He broke Chris Doleman's franchise record with more than five minutes left in the third quarter.
Suddenly, he had a shot at the NFL record. In the fourth quarter, Allen was matched up against the tight end on a play. He knew he was going to go outside him, and with the right jump, Allen figured he'd get the record.
"I took off and I slipped," Allen said. "I was 1-on-1 with the tight end, I slipped and the ball got out."
The two also talked about how Allen's curling career got started, with Allen noting that he actually took an interest in badminton first.
Graff wrote:
It all started with a bet he made with a buddy that he could make a PGA Tour event. After a few cracks at that came well short, Allen changed the bet to say that he could make the Olympics.
Allen's journey started by looking up sports that the U.S. hadn't won a gold medal in. He figured it'd be easier to make the Olympic team in one of those competitions. Badminton stood out. He'd played by the lake growing up, he's tall, and he's athletic. It'd be easy, he figured.
Allen first thought he'd play singles but his wife encouraged him to at least have a buddy to play with if he was going to spend hours training for the Olympics in a sport he'd never played competitively. He recruited former quarterback Marc Bulger, one of his neighbors at the time in Nashville.
"So then we start watching all these doubles matches," Allen said. "I'm watching these dudes fly around the court. I'm like, I'm going to get hurt. I've already ruptured my L5 twice. I don't need this again. Oh my gosh, this is aggressive. Marc calls and he's like, 'I can't do that, my body can't handle that. This is way more movement than I thought it was going to take.'"
Allen then switched to curling and noted he is trying to earn a spot on the 2022 U.S. Olympic team.
The full interview with Graff and Allen can be found here.