Commanders’ Jonathan Allen trying to resurrect his season: ‘He’s built different’

When Washington Commanders defensive tackle Jonathan Allen sustained a pectoral injury in the third quarter of a 30-23 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Oct. 13, his eighth NFL season appeared to be over as he headed to surgery to repair the injury.

But on Wednesday, the former Alabama All-American returned to practice, and the Commanders will be able to restore him to their active roster from injured reserve anytime in the next three weeks.

“He’s really worked hard to get ready into this space,” Washington coach Dan Quinn said on Wednesday, “so we’ll just kind of take it by practice as we’re going.”

Allen said he learned he might be able to return this season “very soon after surgery.”

“We knew there was an opportunity,” Allen said, “but you never want to count your chickens before – how does that saying go? – yeah, before they hatch. Something like that. We had an idea, but you just never know, so I just wanted to work in silence and just keep going until I had a real opportunity.”

Quinn said Allen kept clearing off checkpoints after his surgery to where it became realistic for the defensive tackle at least to get an opportunity to return.

“He looked not like a person that had this surgery,” Quinn said. “Usually you see a lot less on one side, and so he’s built different, for sure. It was within the last month that this trajectory was taking place. If he hit all the markers, then we knew this would be the window that the docs had advised to say, ‘If he hits all the stuff to lead up into this – pressing and moving – you’d have a shot to do that,’ and so he just hit the spots, so we’ll continue down that way.”

Allen said he was “really excited” to be back on the field with his teammates.

“I think it’s just about going out there and just feeling comfortable,” Allen said about when he might play again. “Today was a really good day for me, a good first day. But that was all it was was a first day, so we’re going to take it one day at a time and go from there.”

Washington has not finished a season with a winning record during Allen’s career – until this season. The Commanders have a 9-5 mark with three games remaining on their regular-season schedule.

Washington can clinch a postseason berth on Sunday. The Commanders need to beat the Philadelphia Eagles while the Atlanta Falcons and the Los Angeles Rams or Seattle Seahawks lose their Week 16 games.

“Whenever you get a chance to play meaningful December football, it’s always going to be awesome,” Allen said, “so I can’t wait to get out there and help the guys.”