Despite calling himself the "runner-up at the prom,"Jared Allen isn't bitter.
Not after he tallied 3.5 sacks in Sunday's loss to the Bears to finish the season with 22 -- a half sack short of Michael Strahan's NFL single-season record of 22.5, set with the Giants in 2001.
Allen's easing into the cruel fate of it all, his mental state comfortably nestled somewhere between that of Jack Handey and The Unabomber. The Vikings defensive lineman can't help but replay the season, cycling through spots where he might have grabbed that last sack.
"I looked back at what I missed against Detroit," he told KFAN-FM this week, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. "I look back at the teams where they took away my sack and gave me a team sack in Green Bay when Aaron Rodgers dropped the ball and ran into my guy and dropped the ball. They called ... I don't know what they called it. I missed another one that game when I hit him and the ball came off the top.
"There was Arizona where I got poked in the eye. ... I think the biggest things was I knew if we could get one more series yesterday, we could have scored after that pick. One more series, I knew I was going to get it. I just kind of ran out of time, but it was fun."
As Allen strolled past Chris Doleman's franchise mark of 21 sacks, his proximity to the NFL mark revived memories of Strahan receiving a little help from the ol' gunslinger, Brett Favre, who took a notorious stage dive to seal the record. Allen and Favre are chums, but the snow-bearded ex-passer might want to watch his back.
"Yeah, I need to slap him right in the face for that one," Allen said, joking. "You know what, I will say this: People have been giving Michael Strahan a hard time about it, but a sack is a sack is a sack. They were recording it a sack. That is what it is. I've had sacks where I was closest to the guy when he ran out of bounds, so you work hard and forget."
