Kansas City defensive end Jared Allen has his pads adjusted during training camp. Allen leads the AFC with eight sacks despite missing the first two games of the season.

Kansas City running back Priest Holmes (31) runs in front of Oakland defensive end Tommy Kelly (93). Holmes returned to action after a two-year layoff in Sunday's 12-10 victory against the Raiders in Oakland, Calif.

Kansas City, Mo. ? He ran with the bulls in Pamplona and went after wild boar with a knife.

List the most dangerous things Jared Allen’s done in 2007, and crashing into 300-pound tackles and guards ranks no higher than third.

“Life’s too short to put anything on hold,” Kansas City’s thrill-seeking defensive end says with a big grin. “I go out and enjoy life.”

For opposing quarterbacks, he’s making life miserable. His eight sacks are tied for the league lead and seem to signal like oncoming headlights that in his fourth season, the 6-foot-6, 275-pounder is ready to take his place among the NFL’s elite defensive linemen.

Impressively, Allen’s eight sacks for 61 yards in losses came in only five games. The New York Giants’ Osi Umenyiora also has eight, but he has played seven games.

Even more impressively, Allen, a fun-loving party animal since his college days at Idaho State, is sober. He hasn’t had a drop, close friends say, since a second drunken-driving conviction got him in trouble 13 months ago with the law and the league.

“He cold-turkeyed it,” said Chiefs fullback Boomer Grigsby, Allen’s close friend. “He knows he has a chance to be the best defensive end in football. Maybe he already is. All he needs to do is take care of himself.”

In addition to his sacks, Allen has forced two fumbles and utilized his long wingspan to knock down four passes while energizing a drastically improved defense that is, without question, the major reason the Chiefs (4-3) go into their bye week as surprise leaders in the AFC West.

“Jared is probably one of the most underrated defensive ends in the league,” Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer said.

As a penalty for his DUI convictions, Allen restlessly sat out the first two games this season under suspension. Then, like a taut spring finally given permission to uncoil, he came back and recorded eight tackles, two sacks, two passes deflected, three quarterback hurries and a forced fumble in a 13-10 victory over Minnesota that may have sparked a season-saving turnaround for the entire team.

Without Allen, the Chiefs were 0-2. With him, they’re 4-1.

“It isn’t just the pass rush,” said defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham. “His play has also been outstanding against the run. He’s finally gotten to the point where he’s not always worried about the sack. He used to be undisciplined. But now he’s playing great in all phases.”

He’s also climbing the team career sack charts and could one day challenge the record of Derrick Thomas, who died of injuries in a car crash in 2000 and had 1261â2.

Studying tapes of old games, Allen has marveled at how Thomas would get around blockers.

“He taught me stuff from the grave. I’d say, ‘How is he getting off the ball that fast?'”

Friends were not amazed that Allen quit drinking. But they are astonished at the effect sobriety has had on his personality.

“It’s had none – none at all,” said Grigsby. “Imagine this: It’s three o’clock in the morning in Las Vegas and you’re at this great party. There’s women everywhere. There’s booze, famous people. Everybody in the place is drinking except one guy. And he’s on the dance floor having the best time of anybody. That was Jared. I saw it. I was there.

“He can have a great time and be himself completely around people who are all drinking. And he’s still the life of the party. Once he realized he didn’t need it, the rest was easy.”

Allen’s not a man to let anything stand in the way of a good time. A lifelong rodeo fan, he has always wanted to run with the bulls in Pamplona. So a few weeks before training camp, he hopped on a plane bound for Spain.

“It was just about the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “I was about three feet away from the bulls. I must have been the only person on the street that day who was sober.”

Hunting a 200-pound wild boar with a knife was also “pretty intense,” he recalled.

“That’s the only true way to hunt. Anybody can hang back and shoot something from 300 yards away.”

And the meat?

“I kill something, I eat it.”

Doesn’t he worry about career-ending, or even life-threatening injuries when he’s doing his daredevil stunts?

“You can get hurt just walking down the street,” he said. “I’ve done some fun, crazy stuff. But I’ve always come out all right.

“I live life just as it comes, man.”