Bears defensive end Jared Allen returned to the lineup for last Sunday’s loss to the Panthers after a bout of pneumonia, but he wasn’t able to sack Cam Newton during the contest.
That left Allen without a sack for the season, which certainly isn’t what anyone would expect from a player who has had at least 11 sacks in every season since 2006. Allen doesn’t expect the zero in the sack column to last much longer.
“Do I want all the sacks? Absolutely. Will they come? Absolutely,” Allen said, via the Chicago Sun-Times. “My technique in my rush is good. I don’t really have a lot of false movements, and you’ve just got to keep working. They’ll come.”
Allen said that his lungs feel good, but that he still felt a bit light in last week’s game as a result of the illness. He still managed seven tackles during the game, leading him to joke that the “whole thing about me not playing the run anymore has got to be out the window.”
Allen’s play against the run is surely appreciated by the Bears, but the team brought him on to drop quarterbacks. He’ll try to start doing that against Matt Ryan this weekend as the Bears try to avoid a 2-4 start to the season.
