The Chicago Bears are trading defensive end Jared Allen to the Panthers for a sixth round draft pick, according to FOX Sport’s Jay Glazer. If the Panthers decide to keep Allen beyond this season, he is set to earn base salaries of $8.5 million in 2016 and $8 million in 2017.
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Allen, a 5-time Pro Bowler and 4-time first-team All-Pro, had been a defensive end his entire 11-year National Football League career, including his first season with the Bears.
Allen was healthy in Chicago, but not happy with his role.
“Johnson suffered a hamstring strain in last week”s 27-22 win against New Orleans, and an MRI Monday revealed it was bad enough to shelf Johnson for multiple weeks. Including the three games he played with the team this season, he got paid $11.676 million for a total of FOUR tackles as a Bears in 2015. He will likely pick up the Panthers’ system in short order given his enormous experience, but the extra time he’ll have to digest the schematics makes this trade even better.
“I’m not a standup 3-4 guy, ” Allen said. If they hadn’t recorded four sacks against Seattle and still had none for the year, this might have been more hard to sell.
“Allen is a pass rushing specialist – he rushes with violence”, Panthers coach Ron Rivera said Monday.
Tampa Bay coach Lovie Smith joked on a conference call Wednesday that “yes, we’ve heard the news” about Allen’s arrival and the team is adjusting its game plan accordingly. “We watched a lot of tape on him today to make sure this could potentially be a fit for us”, said Rivera, via Black And Blue Review.
“There’s still something there”, Rivera said.
Former Chicago Bears linebacker Jared Allen was welcomed by Kelvin Benjamin and Cam Newton in the Carolina Panthers locker room earlier this week.
And for the Carolina Panthers, Jared Allen fills an unanticipated need. “I feel at home with my hand in the grass”. Regardless they ensured him a huge amount of cash over the initial two years of his agreement. When the Bears came to Charlotte in Week 5, the 6-foot-6 Allen had dropped from 255 pounds to 238.
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Bostic had a series of minor offseason and in-season injuries, and never got on the field with starters at inside linebacker with Shea McClellin and Christian Jones starting. “(The refs) say before the game, ‘I’m here to protect you.’ So not digging into what happened, it just has to be brought up that no matter what kind of player I am, what type of talents I have, I have to trust that he has my health in his benefit.
