Kansas City Chiefs OL Jeff Allen was injured during the preseason and just never really came back to what many of us thought would be a starting role. While Allen was injured early in the preseason, he did play a few snaps here and there in the regular season in the Chiefs heavy formation.
That is until last Sunday when Allen finally returned to the starting lineup.
Some people have asked me today: Why wasn't Jeff Allen starting before? That's a good question! It's also one that the media has asked Andy Reid multiple times since the preseason. Here's a collection of the times Andy Reid was asked about Jeff Allen, and the responses he gave dating back to the week before the season.
October 19
Q: Is Jeff Allen 100 percent? What's keeping him from seeing the field?
REID: "He's pretty close to that, yeah. I'll go through, I'm going to evaluate everything. We're still early after the game here."
October 2
Q: Is Jeff Allen back to 100 percent?
REID: "Yeah, he's getting there. He feels pretty good."
September 26
Q: Where is Jeff Allen at?
REID: "He had a better week this week, so he's pretty close to 100 percent."
September 21
Q: How about Jeff Allen?
REID: "Jeff is working in, he's kind of rotating in with the group there."
September 14
Q: How do you project Jeff Allen to work in the offensive line rotation when he returns?
REID: "I'm fired up that you guys are so interested in the offensive line, that's a beautiful thing. We're getting someplace.Jeff Allen, I thought his injury was worse than (Eric Fisher)'s and his is just a matter of being able to plant and support like a bull rush. It's his knee, which is different. So he worked last week and he got a little bit better as he went on, I'm not sure he can really support. We'll just have to see tomorrow what goes on with these guys. But he's a good football player, the two guys we're talking about are good football players. That's the beauty of this, so it's a good situation to have and I am glad you're interested in it."
September 11
Q: What about Jeff Allen?
REID: "We'll see on that too. I mean, he practiced all week so we'll just see how that rolls."
September 7
Q: Is Jeff Allen not in the mix this week with his knee?
REID: "Jeff—I told you before—Jeff is probably a little bit behind where Fish was, and so he's kind of working through that right now. He went through the 10-10-10 yesterday, but we're just kind of easing him back in just to see how he does here. Again, like I said, he's not quite as far along as where Fish was."