I'm going to preface this by saying that Jared Allen was an excellent player for us.  He worked hard, produced on the field, and was only partly to blame for the situation that resulted in his trade to the Vikings.  I liked having him on our team.

That said, Jared Allen also always struck me as a colossal dumbass who was prone to exercising extremely poor judgment in regards to his actions and comments.  And now he's validated that opinion by attempting to recruit Tony Gonzalez to Minnesota.

Former Chief Jared Allen sent a text message Saturday night to his old friend Tony G after hearing that Tony G is looking to be traded.

Allen told the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "I said, 'You want to get traded, man?' I was joking with him. Then I said, 'Why don't you come join me in Minnesota?' "

Which, of course could constitute a violation of the NFL rules against player tampering, as explained by the league's senior VP of public relations Greg Aiello to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"Out of our anti-tampering policy, the term tampering as used within the NFL refers to any interference by a member club with the employer/employee relationship of another club or any attempt by a club to impermissibly induce the person to seek employment with that club or with the NFL."

The comment from Aiello was, of course, made in response to the Brett Favre saga from this offseason, in which Minnesota offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell was accused of inducing Favre to come out of retirement, thereby putting the Packers in the unenviable position of having to trade away their franchise QB after an acrimonious war of words. 

The NFL found that the Vikings had not tampered in that case by attempting to induce Favre to come play for the Vikings, but that appeared to be based on a lack of evidence that Bevell had made such an overture to Favre.  Allen's case would seem to be a little more clear cut since he openly admitted asking Tony Gonzalez to come to Minnesota.  Based on Roger Goodell's track record with rules violations, I think it's safe to say that should the Chiefs decide to file a complaint Goodell will be none too pleased with having to have this discussion with the same team twice in one year. 

You'd think that the Vikings would have been smart enough to educate their employees about the pitfalls of this sort of thing after narrowly avoiding the axe the first time.  But apparently not, and if the NFL does investigate this and does decide that Allen's actions constitute a violation, this could very well end up benefiting the Chiefs by gaining us draft picks from the Vikings as compensation (as happened with the 49ers when they were forced to swap picks with the Bears for improperly contacting Lance Briggs' agent during the season).

I guess all you can really say is, well played Jared...well played.  Your team is definitely getting value out of signing you long-term.