Chargers WR Keenan Allen may be looking forward to seeing Vikings again

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The 13-year veteran comes off a season-best performance. Los Angeles Chargers’ wide receiver Keenan Allen finished with 11 receptions for 119 yards and one score in Sunday’s 38-24 home loss to the Indianapolis Colts. The six-time Pro Bowler is back with the Bolts after a year in the Windy City. He leads the team with 44 catches and 435 receiving yards, and is second on the club with four touchdown grabs.
This Thursday evening, Jim Harbaugh’s 4-3 team hosts the 3-3 Minnesota Vikings. For Allen, it will mark the third consecutive season and the fourth time since 2023 that he faces the Purple Gang. That means he gets another look at coordinator Brian Flores’ defense.

In 2023 at Minnesota, the Chargers came away with a 28-24 victory. In that game, Allen was targeted 20 times and caught 18 passes for 215 yards in the team’s four-point victory. A year ago, as a member of the Chicago Bears, he faced Kevin O’Connell’s club and Flores’s defensive unit twice. In Week 12 at Soldier Field, Allen finished with nine receptions for 86 yards and one touchdown on 15 targets in a tough 30-27 overtime loss. Three weeks later at Minnesota, he was targeted 13 more times and totaled six catches for 82 yards and another TD.
Let’s do the math. In his last three encounters with the Vikings and Flores’s defense, Allen has been targeted an impressive 48 times and pulled down 33 catches for 383 yards and a pair of trips to the end zone.
It’s not really breaking news, so don’t be shocked if Chargers’ quarterback Justin Herbert leans heavily on Allen and his knowledge of Flores’s defense this Thursday night at SoFi Stadium.
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Russell S. Baxter has been writing and researching the game of football for more than 40 years, and on numerous platforms. That includes television, as he spent more than two decades at ESPN, and was part of shows that garnered five Emmy Awards. He also spent the 2015 NFL season with Thursday Night Football on CBS/NFLN.