Taje LaQuane Allen (born November 6, 1973) is a former professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player who played

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create tur ...

for six seasons for the

St. Louis Rams The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis from 1995 to the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994. The arri ...

, with whom he won Super Bowl XXXIV, and the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The tea ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL).

College career

Allen played college football at the University of Texas where he helped the Longhorns with the last two Southwest Conference Championships and the first Big 12 Championship. During that time he played in the Sun Bowl (which the Longhorns won), Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl. He first gained notoriety during his sophomore year when he came off the bench and knocked down a potential game-tying two-point conversion pass to help Texas beat Pittsburgh. During his junior year, he was the Sugar Bowl roommate of Rob Weaver, a 30 year old who, right before the Sugar Bowl, was discovered to have committed fraud - playing under the name Ron McKelvey - to extend his college playing days. During his senior year he received a Big 12 Honorable Mention.

Pro career

He was drafted by the Rams in the fifth round of the 1997 NFL Draft. He played four seasons with the Rams during which time he started four games. His best season was 1999 when he started 2 games in place of an injured

Dexter McCleon Dexter Keith McCleon (born October 9, 1973) is a former American football safety who played in the National Football League. He played for the St. Louis Rams, Kansas City Chiefs, and Houston Texans in his ten-year career that started in 1997. In a ...

, recorded 2 interceptions (the only two of his NFL career) and had 36 combined tackles. He won a Super Bowl ring that season with the Rams. Though he did not play in Super Bowl XXXIV he knocked down a potentially game-winning 4th down pass into the end zone at the end of the NFC Championship Game. Following the 2000 season he became an unrestricted free agent and was signed a two-year contract with the Chiefs. The Chiefs made him available for the expansion Texans after the 2001 but he was not selected in the expansion draft. He was released by the Chiefs a few months later, but signed with them again the next day. The 2002 season was his last in which he saw limited playing time, being inactive for all but 6 games. After retiring from football, he moved to Cedar Park, Texas, where he got into sports management first working as an Event Operations Assistant at the University of Texas at Austin and then for the Austin Convention Center. He has three sons and a daughter. His son Eamon became a defensive back and kick returner for Sam Houston State.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Taje 1973 births Living people Players of American football from Lubbock, Texas American football cornerbacks Texas Longhorns football players St. Louis Rams players Kansas City Chiefs players