Vikings defensive end Jared Allen is in the final year of his contract, a deal that will pay him more than $14 million for the 2013 season.
Allen’s cap number is $17 million, which led some to wonder if the Vikings might try to find some way to make Allen’s number lower for this season so that they could use some of that cap space in other ways. That could be accomplished through an extension that guarantees Allen stays in Minnesota for several years or some other kind of restructuring of the current deal, but Allen says that neither option has been on the table this offseason.
“You use the word restructure and that to me makes it feel like they’d want me to take a pay cut. And if anybody asked me to take a pay cut, I’d be through the first door out of there. So no. We haven’t talked one iota. It is what it is,” Allen said, via Dan Wiederer of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “And we’re going to go about our business and play good ball and try to win a Super Bowl. And like I said the business stuff? We take care of that in the offseason. I have people to do that. That’s why I don’t get into it. You’re not going to hear it from me. I won’t complain. I go about my business.”
We can’t argue with Allen when it comes to the idea of somehow taking less money from the Vikings. His play has done nothing to warrant any such approach and he’d be correct to reject it out of hand.
An extension seems much more sensible, although the Vikings may have been cautious about it thanks to Allen’s knee and shoulder surgery early in the offseason or the fact that he just turned 31. Unless the two sides plan to start talking in the next couple of months, it looks like Allen’s status will be one of the big stories come the start of next offseason.