'I told [Brett Favre]: Stay retired' Jared Allen recalls 2010 trip to Mississippi

Once upon a time A.J. Hawk and Jared Allen were on opposite sidelines with the same goal: Tear apart the other team's offense. These days Allen is enjoying retirement in Arizona and Hawk is a free agent with his own podcast - The HawkCast.

Hawk fittingly taped Episode 69 of The HawkCast this week with Allen, who wore that jersey number with the Chiefs, Bears, Panthers and of course the Vikings.

The hour-long conversation - which is available as audio or with video - spanned several topics including Allen's seven head coaches, raising kids, sack celebrations, food and drink prices at stadiums, the Bachelor and what it means to be "skinny fat."

At the 20-minute mark things get interesting. Hawk asked Allen about his path from the Chiefs to the Vikings. He then steers the conversation toward that August day in 2010 when Allen, Steve Hutchinson and Ryan Longwell jumped Zygi Wilf's private jet to Mississippi after practice and recruited Brett Favre to come back for one more season in Minnesota.

Said Allen with a big smile: "I used that to get out of training camp for a few days."

And then:

"I was the one guy who told him, 'Stay retired.'"

Allen went into more detail about the trip.

"Hutch and Longwell put the pressure on him," Allen said. "I was like, 'Listen, dude. It looks like you got it pretty good down here.' His place is amazing. I'm like, 'I'm going to be real honest with ya. If I'm you, I stay retired.' But I'm like, 'Don't come back thinking you gotta prove something. If you want to come back and have fun with us and try to win some football games, do it. If not, I might retire and move down here.'"

Favre of course did come back, arriving for the second year in a row to much hoopla at Winter Park. Brad Childress was fired three months later. The team then went 6-10 and Favre retired for good.

So what do you think? Revisionist history by Allen or has the truth come out?