ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Like teammate Courtland Sutton, Denver Broncos All-Pro defensive lineman Zach Allen didn't skip any days of training camp while his agent argued for a new contract.
Unlike Micah Parsons in Dallas, Trey Hendrickson in Cincinnati and Terry McLaurin in Washington, things never got contentious with the front office in Denver.
“This is my happy place,” Allen said Saturday after signing a four-year, $102 million extension with the Broncos that includes nearly $70 million in guarantees and makes him one of the NFL's highest-paid interior defensive linemen in average annual salary.
Allen said the way both sides “handled this was just awesome."
“The fact that we were able to go about this the way we have compared to probably some other things around the league is a testament to what we're building,” he said.
“It’s a business but it never got contentious,” Allen said. “And I think that was a cool thing was just the way that everybody handled it."
Allen said he told his agent, Tommy Condon, “I want to obviously get the best deal possible ... but I care about these people, I care about this place, and I don’t want it to get ugly. The way he went about it, the way the team went about it was awesome.”
Allen's extension came less than a week after Sutton signed a four-year, $92 million deal that features $41 million in guaranteed money. Sutton also thanked the Broncos' ownership group and general manager George Paton for the tenor of talks as he continued to take the field during training camp content in knowing a deal was at hand.
In many ways Allen has served as the fulcrum of Denver's dominant defense the last two seasons, applying pressure up the middle to augment the Broncos' premier pass rush and stellar secondary.
A third-round pick by Arizona out of Boston College in 2019, Allen joined the Broncos two years ago, following defensive coordinator Vance Joseph to Denver. He had five sacks in his first season in Denver and a career-best 8 1/2 sacks last season when he earned second-team All-Pro honors and the Broncos set a franchise record with a league-best 63 sacks.
Allen, who turns 28 this month, also set career bests last year with 15 tackles for loss and 40 quarterback hits while playing nearly 90% of Denver's defensive snaps and moving between end and tackle. He also led the league’s defensive tackles with 67 pressures, according to Next Gen Stats.
Allen is due $12.74 million this season, the final year of his three-year, $45.75 million deal he signed with Denver in 2023.
With deals in place now for Sutton and Allen, the Broncos' biggest contractual concern is rising star edge rusher Nik Bonitto, who is entering the final year of his rookie contrac. He also was named a second-team All-Pro last season when he led the team with 13 1/2 sacks.
Before camp began, Bonitto said he realized a deal might not get done until sometime during the season but knows he'll cash in eventually.
“Yeah, I mean, the edge market is kind of crazy right now knowing that everybody’s getting these big deals and it’s only getting bigger and bigger,” Bonitto said last month. “Luckily for me, I’m in a good position right now where the market’s kind of in my favor.”
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Denver Broncos defensive tackle Malcolm Roach, center, raises his arms to acknowledge the applause of fans while warming up between defensive end Zach Allen, front, and defensive tackle Jordan Miller during an NFL football practice Friday, July 25, 2025, in Centennial, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that “there will be very serious retaliation” after two U.S. service members and one American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blames on the Islamic State group.
“This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” he said in a social media post.
The American president told reporters at the White House that Syria's president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was “devastated by what happened” and stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump, in his post, said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.”
U.S. Central Command said three service members were wounded in an ambush Saturday by a lone IS member in central Syria. Trump said the three “seem to be doing pretty well.” The U.S. military said the gunman was killed.
The attack on U.S. troops in Syria was the first with fatalities since the fall of President Bashar Assad a year ago.
“There will be very serious retaliation,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, said the civilian killed was a U.S. interpreter. Parnell said the attack targeted soldiers involved in the ongoing counter-terrorism operations in the region and is under active investigation.
The shooting took place near historic Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, which earlier said two members of Syria’s security force and several U.S. service members had been wounded. The casualties were taken by helicopter to the al-Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.
Syria's Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al-Din al-Baba said a gunman linked to IS opened fire at the gate of a military post. He added that Syrian authorities are looking into whether the gunman was an IS member or only carried its extreme ideology. He denied reports that suggested that the attacker was a security member.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”
The U.S. has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.
The U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad, but ties have warmed since the fall of the five-decade Assad family rule. Al-Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington last month where he held talks with Trump. It was the first White House visit by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and came after the U.S. lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the Assads’ rule.
Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Bashar Assad in December 2024 and was named the country’s interim leader in January. Al-Sharaa once had ties to al-Qaida and had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Last month, Syria joined the international coalition fighting against the IS as Damascus improves its relations with Western countries following the ouster of Assad when insurgents captured his seat of power in Damascus.
IS was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.
U.S. troops, which have maintained a presence in different parts of Syria — including Al-Tanf garrison in the central province of Homs — to train other forces as part of a broad campaign against IS, have been targeted in the past. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in 2019 in the northern town of Manbij when a blast killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians as well as others from Syria while conducting a patrol.
Mroue reported from Beirut and Seung Min Kim from Washington.
An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect reference to Iraq.
President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs from the South Lawn of the White House, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Washington, en route to Baltimore to attend the Army-Navy football game. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
