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Vikings coach Brad Childress and his staff didn't have to look far to find out how well Jared Allen could play. On Sept. 23 last season against the Vikings, Allen had eight solo tackles, two sacks, a forced fumble and three quarterback hurries in the Chiefs' 13-10 victory.
Nobody is more excited about Tuesday's trade for the great defensive end than Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier.
"We get a premier pass rusher," Frazier said. "You and I both know how important that is, in this scheme or any scheme, to have a premier pass rusher.
"He impressed us a great deal, to find a guy who can create sacks without having to blitz. That's exactly what you want. He's able to generate pressure on the quarterback on his own and he's a playmaker. So that gets you very excited."
As for his big game against the Vikings, Frazier said: "He had a big day that day, but he got the best of a lot of tackles last season. He had a great year. So, [Vikings left tackle] Bryant [McKinnie] had nothing to be ashamed of, Jared won some and Bryant won some as well."
What makes him a Pro Bowl defensive end?
"He's a long guy [6-6, 270] and he just plays so hard, and he's very talented as well," Frazier said. "He's athletic, he can run, he can really run, but his motor, he just never stops working."
Frazier also recalled Allen having a good game against the Colts when Frazier was an assistant with Indianapolis.
"We played him in the playoffs [in 2006, a 23-8 Colts victory] when I was in Indy, and we were well aware of him from a team standpoint at that time also," Frazier said. "So he's been a pretty good player the four years he's been in the league."
Until Allen signed his $74 million contract, with $31 million guaranteed, the highest- paid defensive lineman in the NFL was Dwight Freeney of the Colts (a total salary of $30,750,000), who Frazier coached before joining the Vikings in 2007.
"Both of those guys demand a lot of attention [from the offensive line], they both are going to get after the quarterback, so in that respect they're very similar," Frazier said. "He [Allen] is apt to do a little bit more in the run game than Dwight was, but [they play for] two different types of teams as well. But they both play with such a passion for the game, that's what is impressive about both of them. They're very talented but they have a tremendous passion to be the best."
Frazier said the presence of Allen will allow the Vikings to not blitz as much as they needed to a year ago and also put in some different defensive plans.
"It changes the way you think a little bit," he said. "Having a premier pass rusher like this just gives you some new room to do some other things that you didn't think you could do before, so it does change a little bit.
"We blitzed quite a bit [last season] and there was a reason that we finished in the top 10 in sacks [eighth, with 38] a year ago. But hopefully, because of him, we'll be able to play a little bit more coverage and help our secondary out more."
Frazier said he was impressed how football-smart Allen was.
"When I sit down and talk with him he's not just a guy who just goes out and runs up the field," Frazier said. "He understands the game, he studies tape on opposing opponents and he's a smart football player."
Frazier expects Allen to take over at right end and Ray Edwards to move to left end. As for having depth at defensive end, Frazier said: "Erasmus James still is going through his rehabilitation [from knee injuries] so we're not certain as to when he'll be back, but we're expecting him back at some point during the season, and we've all got our fingers crossed."
Still under cap Rob Brzezinski, the vice president of football operations for the Vikings and a real expert on the salary cap, said the team would be $6 million under the salary cap after signing Allen and have sufficient money to sign their remaining draft choices.
"He's one of the highest-paid players in the NFL and one, he deserves it and two, it's very complicated," Brzezinski said. "This rarely happens, that you get a franchise player off another team and onto your team. It's extremely complicated and hard to do.
"It's a huge contract so there was significant cash and salary cap complications and also with the looming issues with the collective bargaining agreement, it was hard to structure it, a lot of complicated issues in it."
Brzezinski said in the past, the Vikings have had contracts that included a behavior clause. Allen's contract doesn't, even though he has three drunken driving charges on his record and was suspended for the first four games (later reduced to two) last season.
"We would not have done this deal if we had any reservations off the field," Brzezinski said. "We treated him like we treat all our other players."
White impresses One of the best basketball players developed in this state in recent years, Royce White, verbally committed to the Gophers on Wednesday.
DeLaSalle basketball coach Dave Thorson told me, when White was still a sophomore, that he could be a sure bet to be a Big Ten star in the future. He was dismissed from DeLaSalle and is enrolled at Hopkins, where he will play this winter.
White recently put on a great performance when he led his Howard Pulley team to the Kingwood Classic title in Houston. White averaged 26.5 points and eight rebounds against top-level competition in the tournament.
Meanwhile, Verdell Jones, the 6-4 guard from Champaign (Ill.) Central, who the Gophers are recruiting along with Indiana and others, visited the campus Wednesday. Jones, who was a Illinois Class 3A All-State player, is not being recruited by Illinois for some reason.
The Gophers did lose 6-11 center Krys Faber of Los Angeles Ribet Academy to DePaul, but no other major Division I schools was recruiting him. He was a player with potential but not ready to immediately help any team.
Jottings Scott Bell, a former Gophers hockey captain and now Hamline hockey coach, could be the replacement for resigning Gophers assistant Mike Guentzel.
Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway has donated $100,000 to the Sanford Children's Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Sid Hartman can be heard weekdays on WCCO AM-830 at 6:40, 7:40 and 8:40 a.m. and on his Podcast twice a week at www.startribune.com/sidcast. shartman@startribune.com.
