Jared Allen negotiations apparently still ongoing

Update: the courtship continues - Adam Schefter reports "Jared Allen's agent, Ken Harris, texted his client will 'consider Seahawks offer along with the others, and make a decision this weekend.'" Ian Rapoport adds, "Jared Allen heads home. After what were termed 'good discussions' with Seahawks, they made an offer. He'll consider, decide this weekend."

Per PFT: Jared's agent Ken Harris "got to Seattle last night with Jared, [his wife] Amy, and his family. We had a great time meeting everyone during this visit. After some good discussions with the front office today, Jared and Amy are going to consider the Seahawks offer along with the others, and make a decision this weekend."

Ok, cool. I still think it gets done.

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Jared Allen will sign with the Seahawks, might sign with the Seahawks, "reports" ESPN's Ed Werder. The move is not yet official, as Werder notes, but Allen "is in the process of finalizing negotiations on a contract with the Super Bowl champions, according to league sources. Barring unforeseen developments, Allen intends to sign an agreement as soon as Thursday while completing his second visit with coach Pete Carroll and the team."

The numbers have obviously not yet been announced, so that will be the interesting thing to watch. The negotiations have taken a few weeks, and for Seattle, it's just a matter of finding a price point that doesn't negatively affect their chances to re-sign their core players like Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, and Russell Wilson, among others. Though fans certainly fret over this, I'm sure this front office is aware of that conundrum.

Allen has had more than 11 sacks in each of the past seven seasons, hasn't missed a game in six, and should provide Seattle with a nice spark to their pass rush in a rotational role. Allen played 98% of his snaps on the right side in both 2012 and 2013, so that's likely where he fits best for Seattle, particularly after they released Chris Clemons. He had 65 total pressures in 2012, according to ProFootballFocus' tracking - 34 QB hurries, 18 hits, and 13 sacks (their sack numbers often differ from NFL official sack tracking) - and this was good for second in the NFL behind only Robert Quinn.

However, Allen played almost 100 more snaps than the next closest 4-3 defensive end, so those counting stats aren't exactly fair. If you go by a per-pass-rush-snap metric, his Pass Rush Percentage rating from the right side, per PFF, was 8.0 - 19th in the NFL among 4-3 defensive ends. This was down from 7th in that metric in 2012 and 6th in 2011. It will be interesting to see what kind of effectiveness he'll have when he's asked to play significantly fewer snaps and we'll see if Seattle's talent allows him more one-on-one situations in pass rush. For reference, Allen played 649 pass rush snaps to Chris Clemons' 290 in 2013. That's an absurd difference.

Darren Page had an interesting thought on twitter, noting: "I think the effectiveness of Jared Allen will drop off in a role with much fewer snaps. We shall see. Allen always did his best work in the fourth quarter. He wears down tackles and is a chess master. Lower snap count changes that." He countered, though, that the "Devil's advocate will say that Allen will now be fresher in the fourth quarter and could be even more effective."

After witnessing the enormous impact that Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril had for the defense last year, I'm certainly open to the acquisition but hope that the two sides were able to land on a number significantly lower than the reported $10M per year that Allen was seeking.

I had speculated on twitter yesterday, after considering the deals that Demarcus Ware and Julius Peppers both got, that we should perhaps steady ourselves for a possible big payday for Allen. That said, here's to hoping Seattle has exercised fiscal discipline and will sign him for somewhere in the $5-$7M range, perhaps working in a few performance incentives to get him closer to where he wants to be.

Pat Kirwin, a close friend to Pete Carroll, speculated yesterday that Allen will "strike a four-year deal worth $36 million ($9M average) with $17 million guaranteed." He followed up with that by saying, "Don't be surprised if the Seahawks stay in the race for Allen." Maybe Kirwin was just guessing, or maybe he was operating with some inside information. We'll find out soon.

For now, I'll just leave this here.