Regardless of whose side you stand on in the Trent Williams vs. the Washington Redskins power struggle that has taken place over the last calendar year, you can’t deny that it’s acted as a black mark on the franchise as a whole.
For anyone who is unfamiliar with the situation, Williams was upset with the medical staff in Washington after they reportedly downplayed the significance of a growth on his scalp that ended up being a rare form of cancer. He held out from the team for several months, and when he eventually returned, claiming he had intentions to play, they placed him on the NFI list, making him ineligible for the season.
Now, as the team sees the end of the season fast approaching and starts to think about future free-agent signings, a dark cloud looms over the franchise that has to be detracting to future signees.
In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Williams explains why.
“Let’s say you are a coaching candidate or you’re a free agent, what does it say to you?” he asks. “… It’s not like it’s something whispered. Everybody sees how they treated me. Free agents know for a better part of the last decade I’ve been one of the only guys in those Pro Bowl locker rooms with a Redskins symbol on my helmet. So then they see somebody like that get treated like that …”
His voice trails off.
“At the end of the day, money is money, so you might have to overpay just to get people in to overcome this,” he continues. “But I know if I was [a free agent] looking at it, I’d be looking at the situation closely.”
Will the treatment of Williams cause future free agents to avoid Washington completely? Maybe, maybe not. It may not have made the franchise a non-factor when it comes to the free agency market this upcoming offseason, but it for sure did not make them a more coveted place to play.
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