Vikings: Jared Allen says team is working to win now

At 30 years old, DE Jared Allen is not the oldest player on the Vikings' roster, but he is in the minority when it comes to NFL experience — only CB Antoine Winfield (14) and DT Kevin Williams (10) have more years than his nine in the league.

Therefore, when coach Leslie Frazier talks about the veterans buying into the youth movement on the team, Allen is one of them he is referring to.

Allen, who went to the brink of the Super Bowl in 2009 with Brett Favre and company, has not been shy about his desire to win. He would like to get to that big game, but knows his chances are slim on a team that is clearly going younger (cutting 12-year veteran QB Sage Rosenfels and keeping rookie McLeod Bethel-Thompson, for instance).

But Allen doesn’t see what the team is doing as rebuilding. Rather, he holds everyone, no matter their age, to the same professional standard: do your job or get out.

“At the end of the day, this is a business,” said Allen. “We’re in the business of winning football games. And we get paid to do our job. We have one expectation and one standard, and the coaches stress that. I am firm believer if people drop below that standard and can’t get back up there, you find someone who can do it.”

Allen says the coaches have imparted that idea of believing that even the younger players must prepare for Sundays just like the veterans, and they must strive to reach the same standard of excellence — and if they don’t, it’s up to the coaches to find players who will. That makes it easier for Allen to work each week at practice and play his heart out each game.
“For me, that the coaches have been stressing that takes that (worry) out of our hands,” said Allen. “We’re not in this to build, we’re in to win right now.”

It all comes down to winning for Allen. And if you prepare well and are correctly motivated, winning takes care of itself. And as a veteran, it’s his job is to model that behavior at every practice.

“We’re not in the business of losing,” said Allen. “We don’t like to lose. And you try to demonstrate that throughout the week by your preparation--and so far, we have been preparing well. But we’ve got a young team. They’ve got to figure out what it takes to get them ready for game day. Hopefully we can simulate that in practice so come Sunday there aren’t a whole lot of mistakes for lack of knowing what the tempo (will be) or what game-day is going to be like.”

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