It took until the end of the third regular-season game, but Jared Allen finally got a sack. After leading the NFL with 22 sacks last season, just 1/2 sack shy of the league record, Allen came close several times in the first two games and in the game Sunday, Sept. 23, against the San Francisco 49ers. His late-game sack was huge, snuffing any chance of a 49ers rally when he brought down Alex Smith with 1:33 to play and caused a fumble the Vikings recovered. He made the sack despite playing with neck spasms that started late in the first half after he attempted to sack Smith. Here is Allen …

On whether it felt good to get his first sack: “Yeah, especially because I missed another one. I missed the one right before the half. I don’t know how (Smith) stayed up. I hit him as hard as I could. And then the whole left side of my neck locked up on me. So I wasn’t in that much in the second half. I was trying to play between neck spasms. At the end there, I said, ‘I’m going to play until it breaks.’ It was great to get that (first sack).”

On when he hurt his neck: “The hardest I’ve ever been hit in my life was by Alex Smith. I don’t know how he didn’t go down. On the last one, I barely get his arm and he goes down and he fumbles the ball. I blindside him and I fall and (hurt) my neck.”

On the win: “We won it in a great fashion. It wasn’t like we eked one out. We won it in a dominant fashion, start to finish. A lot of guys were challenged this week. I mean, top to bottom. Coaching staff, the players old and young, and everybody answered the bell. I think our biggest thing was, we needed to play with more grit. We needed to come out in our seven-man fronts and six-man and eight-man fronts and stop the run. We told Coach, ‘We’ll just play straightforward and we’ll stop the run.’ He believed in us and we were able to be dominant on both sides of the ball. That’s how we won this game.”

On taking an early lead on the 49ers: “We knew if we can get them down, they’re not really built to play from behind. Those guys pound the ball and take calculated shots down the field.”

On whether it’s the best a win has felt since the Vikings reached the NFC Championship Game after the 2009 season: “Yeah. This was a heck of a win. I usually can come off the field and find good and bad in everything. All I’m finding is a lot of good.”