Jared Allen talks fatherhood … of a daughter

Jared Allen has a daughter turning one this season, but he is already thinking of and preparing for the dating years. Likely, it won’t be pretty for dad or prospective suitors of Brinley Allen.

A little more than a month from now, Brinley Noelle Allen will celebrate her first birthday.

Her dad is already preparing for her future.

Unfortunately, for boys also in the diaper stage, although they are currently unaware of it, that will be very, very bad news.

Brinley’s dad is Jared Allen, a man who routinely shoves aside men on the north side of 300 pounds to get to smaller, frailer man who happen to be unlucky enough to be holding the hot potato as Allen tries to remove him from said potato.

Viking Update had a sit-down with Brinley’s dad and the topic eventually veered into the realm of what happens when some 16-year-old kid who reminds Jared of himself when he was at that age shows up at the door to take his daughter out. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

“It’s not going to be good, let’s put it that way,” Allen said. “I was joking with my wife that every time she says, ‘Dad, I made a new friend’ if it’s a boy, we’re just going to move.”

Anyone who knows Allen knows that he is a free spirit who is a genuinely nice person. But he was also a teenaged boy in the mid-to-late ’90s who was neither bookish nor shy. Things took place. He has a memory of those days and isn’t about to display kindness to strangers when it comes to his little girl.

“It’s going to be weird,” Allen said. “Hopefully, if she looks like me, it won’t be a problem. If she looks like my wife, it’s going to be a long trip.”

There are those who say giving a man a daughter is God’s way of checking him to the curb. Few things change a man more profoundly than giving him a daughter. Suddenly you “don’t like the eyes” on that kid at daycare. Irrational? Yes. Does it happen? Yes.

Allen can still enjoy the years before he has to start working out just in case some young gunslinger crosses the line. He’s taken out his share of gunslingers and that street cred may be enough to stop suitors in their tracks. From the dead-eyed stare he gave at the mere mention of the scenario, one can only assume any interlopers to the House of Allen will be stricken down with great vengeance and furious anger upon those who attempt to poison and destroy what Jared has built.

If that alone isn’t enough to terrify any teenaged boy from stepping up with his “honorable intentions,” prospective boyfriends need to understand that Allen has already game-planned for a worst-case scenario. Just as the NFL is a copycat league – the Wildcat embarrassed Bill Belichick four years ago Friday and it has taken four years for defenses to learn that they run 92 percent of the time out of that formation – so is the father-of-a-daughter fraternity. There is no secret handshake. There’s a 50-yard death stare and truck driver head nod of recognition that silently announces membership. If you aren’t in it, you just don’t understand. Allen is and, like a true tactician, he has watched the film and has a definitive game plan in place.

“You try to teach them the right things,” Allen said. “My buddy has the greatest analogy. He has a 9-year-old little girl. I’m like, ‘What are you going to do? She’s a little cutie-pie.’ He’s like, ‘No worries. She can date whoever she wants. She can go to any party she wants. A dance? It doesn’t matter, ‘cuz I’m going with her. So, where are we going now?’ That’s how I’m looking at it.”

Parents of boys born within the last couple of years, be forewarned in the year 2025. Never mess with a guy who tossed 330-pounders aside for a living. You probably will be mosquito swat by comparison. Brinley may not like it, but her dad is a little bit intimidating and will have trouble hiding the smile.

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John Holler has been writing about the Vikings for more than a decade for Viking Update. Follow Viking Update on Twitter and discuss this topic on our message boards. To become a subscriber to the Viking Update web site or magazine, click here.

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