5 best Minnesota Vikings moments of the past decade
By Adam Patrick
5. Allen sets the Vikings all-time sack record (2011)
In 2011, there wasn’t a ton for Minnesota’s fans to get excited about. This was the season in which Donovan McNabb discovered he was no longer capable of playing quarterback in the NFL, Christian Ponder actually had some promise as a rookie, and Adrian Peterson suffered a torn ACL in the second-to-last game of the year.
This was also Leslie Frazier’s first full season as the Vikings head coach and the team only managed to win a total of three games.
Despite Minnesota’s struggles in 2011, the team still had at least one bright spot on their roster that year and that was the performance put on by defensive end Jared Allen.
Allen was on fire to begin the year with 8.5 sacks in the Vikings’ first five games. He racked up another 10 sacks during Minnesota’s next 10 contests and he entered the final game 2.5 sacks behind the franchise’s all-time single-season sack record of 21 set by Chris Doleman in 1989.
Against the Chicago Bears in Week 17, Allen not only tied Doleman’s sack record, he broke it and inserted his name at the top of the Vikings’ record book. The talented Minnesota defensive end notched 3.5 sacks against the Bears in the final game of the year and he ended up finishing with a total of 22 sacks in 2011.