Jared Allen Loves to Kill Things

I’m not telling you about this article to be some sort of corporate monkey. I’m telling you about this because it’s effing fantastic. SN’s Mike Nahrstedt wrote a profile of the Vikings d-lineman, and all around redneckishly awesome dude, Jared Allen for the latest issue of the mag. (This would be the same guy who shaves a line in his hair for every sack he gets.)↵↵In order to write the piece, Mike spent time with Jared doing what Jared does best: Kill stuff (whether that be quarterbacks, or, in this case, animals). It’s about 4,000 words, so there’s more goodness than I can relay in this space, but here’s what you can expect: ↵

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↵↵⇥And there was that wild boar hunt. Dogs ran down the hog and pinned it to the ground and his guide flipped it over, but Allen still had to release the catch dog while avoiding tusks that were sharp enough to rip off a kneecap, or worse, and then plunge the 10-inch knife into the hog. “You go armpit to armpit with it,” he says.↵⇥↵⇥...↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥Driving almost to the Canadian border, glassing for a while, driving back south, still looking for the first sign of bear. Allen, a vacuum cleaner for information, peppers Stueve [the hunting guide] with questions. Are bears creatures of habit? (Yes.) Do bears travel in packs, or are they loners? (Loners.) What do you call the male and the female? (Boar and sow, just like hogs.) Can I finish off the bear with a knife? (Yes, but it sounds like a really bad idea.) ↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥“I’m a little excited,” says Allen, his ever-present smile creasing his face. “I’m nervous. I’m not sure if Gary is kidding me about the knife, but I’m willing to find out.” ↵⇥

↵↵So, as you can see, Allen has quite the obsession with gutting animals via the knife. Which is cool, I guess, if you’re into the hunting thing. Which I’m not, like, at all. The grocery store has plenty of fresh meats that don’t require killing. But at least Allen claims to eat what he kills, if that makes it any better.↵