Jared Allen wasn’t going to retire, just didn’t want to play for a bad team
By Mike Dyce
While Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen was looking for a new team, there were reports that he’d retire if he didn’t get the deal he wanted. Well now that Allen has signed a four-year deal worth up to $32 million with the Chicago Bears, Allen is setting those reports straight saying that he was never going to retire.
He just didn’t want to simply cash a check, he wanted a chance to win.
“It was never my intent but my point was that if I was going to throw my cleats and pads on for a team that had no chance,” Allen said, via Master Tesfatsion of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “They’re rebuilding at this point in your career and you’re laying it all out there because I still feel like I’m the best at what I do. If not the (best), one of.
“There’s always a threshold that I had to excess and say, ‘Is it worth going below this?’ But that was kind of my process going through. It was never, ‘Oh, if I don’t get X amount of dollars, I’m walking away.’ That was never the case.”