Shutting down Jared Allen bigger to Bears than getting even

Bears QB Jay Cutler will need to know where Vikings DE Jared Allen is at all times on Sunday. (US Presswire)

The Chicago Bears are more worried about Vikings DE Jared Allen hitting QB Jay Cutler legally than they are about any illegal retaliation for perceived atrocities in the teams' last matchup two weeks ago.

Allen got fined $21,000 for a season-ending blindside block high on G Lance Louis, but the public thinking among most players is the hit did not warrant getting even with the Vikings pass rusher.

"I don't see that. I don't see that happening," offensive coordinator Mike Tice said. "There's been no talk of that, and that's not how you play the game. You play the game in between the whistles. I don't teach that kind of stuff, never have.

"You've never seen any stories about my guys chop-blocking or anything like that. We don't teach that.”

Cutler has said he didn't view Allen as a dirty player.

"You look at the play and he hit him in the head, he did all of the things he shouldn't do ... but I don't think it's indicative of the player or person he is," he said.

At least outwardly, Allen doubts he'll need to have his head on a swivel.

"I mean, they had a chance to retaliate during the game," Allen said in a conference call with Chicago reporters. "I like I said, there's nothing to retaliate. It wasn't vicious, it wasn't malicious, it wasn't done out of ill will.

"We had an interception, a guy was running toward our guy (Antoine Winfield) to make a tackle and I threw a block."

Allen said the fact Louis' season-ending injury was to the knee was proof the hit was meant to harm because he hit Louis high.

"I saw him laying there, I thought he hit his head on the ground and I asked (LT J'Marcus) Webb and coach Tice after the game if he was OK and they said no and I said 'dang, that sucks, that was never the intent,' but you can't take it back."

Allen also said the fact the hit ended Louis' season was irrelevant to the issue of whether it was a malicious play.

"You never want that to happen," he said. "I've been in situations in Detroit where a guy comes and knifes my knee -- that was the intent, to knife my knee.

Luckily I was able to play through it and the league didn't find any malicious intent in that.
"Again, I play the game pure."

The Bears worry about Allen's speed being more of a factor Sunday than it was last time. They held him without a sack in the game after he made 3 1/2 in the season finale last year at Minnesota.

"A dome, it's going to be loud, Jared Allen is a little bit of a different player in that dome compared to Soldier Field," Cutler said.

The Bears went with extra blocking help for LT J'Marcus Webb at times in Chicago to shut down Allen, but also by moving his launch point on passes with rollouts and bootlegs. They also went with more three-step drops than normal.

"We went back and put a clock on it and I think there was only two or three times the whole game when he held the ball more than about 2½ seconds," Allen said.

It meant shorter passes, but they worked.

"But the biggest thing is they had a lead the whole time so there's no need for them to spread out, no need for them to created one-on-ones," Allen added.

Cutler thinks it will be a varied approach to handling Allen.

"We're going to do similar stuff that we did, I am sure," he said. "We threw a lot of different blocking schemes at him. We slid into. We threw a fullback at him. We chipped with a tight end. We got rid of the ball quickly, ran the ball efficiently. We've just got to do those things and do more of it."

Follow Bears reporter Gene Chamberlain on Twitter @CBSBears.