Editor's note: Vikings defensive end Jared Allen has agreed to provide his unique insight into his world this season for the Pioneer Press and twincities.com. In this installment of his diary, as told to Sean Jensen, Allen talks about Christmas and about his outlook for Sunday's season finale against the New York Giants.
The best Christmas gift I ever got was probably those electronic cars, with the track and the loopy loops. Those were pretty badass.
I was really into that stuff, at that age.
With Christmas, one of those things that you get used to, playing in the NFL -- it's my fifth year in the league -- you accept that you don't have Christmases and you don't have Thanksgivings.
It's just another day.
It's just me and my girlfriend (Jordan).
We'll just hang out.
But this is why I came here, to be in a position to play for the playoffs, to win a division. It's not like we're trying to get a wild card. We have a chance to win our division. And hang a banner up at Winter Park.
Unfortunately, this didn't happen the way we kind of planned it. If we would have won Sunday, it probably would have been, like, the ideal season. But it didn't work out that way. We got to get to 10-6, and we got to win.
If you want to be the best, you got to beat the best. I mean, we're not shying down from anyone. We don't care who we got to play, because you never know what people's motivations are for playing. All we know is, we have a season on the line here, and we want to go get it.
I think that's the mentality of the guys in this locker room.
It's going to be a good, focused week, and we're going to get the job done.
You can maybe look at it as a blessing in disguise. You never know why things happen. You really don't. Now we're keeping our fans in this thing until the very end.
If we would have locked it up last week, maybe it would have been nonchalant (against the Giants), and that's not the way you want to go into the playoffs. You want to go in with all the momentum possible.
