YouTube/Courtyard Hotels

Jared Allen
 

Jared Allen is still involved with football, just not the football you associate with him.

"I've always been a father before I was ever a football player, so my priorities were always first with family and then football," the five-time Pro Bowl defensive end says of retired life. "Now I get to do more stuff with them. I get to coach soccer."

"When I say coach, I fill in for our coach when I need to so I'm like a loose assistant. I'm actually pretty sweet with the soccer ball with these old feet."

Allen played 12 NFL seasons for the Chiefs, Vikings, Bears and Panthers. He won an NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award (2011), is No. 11 on the all-time sack list and made the Super Bowl in his final season. When he announced his retirement in February 2016, he posted a video of himself literally riding off into the sunset.

Take one look at Allen in June 2017 and you'll notice something right away: He's skinny. Allen was not necessarily a bulky defensive lineman at 6-6 and 255 pounds, but his figure has since changed.

"I tell people all the time, if you really want to get skinny, they say muscle weighs more than fat, so if you lose the muscle, you always shed some weight that way," Allen says. "I always try to rock my Dad bod.

"I try to do casual workouts, don't like to lift as heavy weights, eat good, solid food. I won't be the guy who blows up to 400 pounds."

Allen was planning to retire earlier than he did, but a call from Chicago kept him in the NFL two extra years.

Jared Allen

"I have to be honest with you, when I left Minnesota I was originally planning on retiring, but the Bears kind of made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Allen says. "Football was a means to an end. At some point, you can't last forever, so enjoy it, embrace it and go forth."

Allen signed a four-year, $32 million contract ($15.5 million) guaranteed with the Bears in March 2014, which would be his final NFL contract. He played two years on the contract with the second coming in Carolina after the Bears traded him.

While coaching soccer is a new hobby, Allen is bringing back an old hobby in 2017: running.

"I could run for days," Allen says of his playing days. "I mean, I was like a gazelle. My muscles don't like to move that much anymore.

"The first year, I didn't work out that much, to be honest with you, I just kind of relaxed a little bit. I'm starting to pick it back up now, get the old body back in shape. We were on a four-mile run the other day, and I was like, 'Aw crap, I can't just speed up and run four miles anymore.' I better get back in the gym a little bit."

Allen established his offseason residence in Scottsdale in 2005. He and wife Amy have two daughters, Brinley and Lakelyn. He made a rare trip out of Arizona recently -- by plane, not on foot -- to work with partner Courtyard at Minneapolis' U.S. Bank Stadium, home of Super Bowl LII this season. Allen took Vikings fan Prentice Kugler on a tour through the "Vikings Voyage" interactive exhibit and the team museum before leading him to a special exhibit made to honor Kugler's life as a dad. His daughters, Rafferty and Hattie, were in on the surprise as part of Courtyard's Father's Day celebration. Kugler's wife also made an appearance to deliver four tickets to the Super Bowl.


Allen got to be the upbeat messenger, but would not have minded if the promotion was a bit different, based on his new post-football frame.

"They should've had a Courtyard best Dad bod competition," he jokes. "I probably would've won that one hands down."

Maybe next year, Jared.

-- Follow Jeff Eisenband on Twitter @JeffEisenband. Like Jeff Eisenband on Facebook.