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During the 2007 season, Vikings wide receiver Troy Williamson was docked a game check for leaving the team and missing a game for his grandmother’s funeral.
After Williamson and other players complained, Vikings coach Brad Childress changed his mind and Williamson got paid. But as far as Williamson was concerned, the damage was done.
Williamson now plays for the Jaguars, who host the Vikings on Sunday. And he says still has no respect for Childress.
“After that, I had no more respect for Childress,” Williamson said, per Sean Jensen of the Pioneer Press. “I mean, that’s gone out the window, and I don’t see that coming back ever. That bridge is burned.”
Although the Vikings had the right to withhold Williamson’s pay when he didn’t play, the decision to dock the paycheck of a man who was grieving the loss of a loved one was viewed by many as an example of Childress being tone deaf to his players’ concerns.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Childress and Wade Phillips are at the top of my list, off the top of my head, of head coaches who are just bringing their teams down. Fire him already.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Troy must also have no respect for any of the QBs he has played with. If he did, he wouldn’t have dropped so many perfect TD passes.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 6 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I lost all respect for Childress when he refused to let his youngest daughter wear his Marine Corps hat in the second season of Major Dad.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 8 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
More Viking posts–Thank you!
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Give Troy a brake. He couldn’t contact the Vikings and tell them about his grandmother’s funeral because he dropped and destroyed his cell phone.
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Rating: 4.25 / 5 with 7 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
dude, enough Vikings bashing.
Troy Williamson just took off and didn’t tell the team he wasn’t back for practice or a game.
The original decision was the right one and media idiots who don’t bother with the facts (I guess like Florio) are the only ones who have continued to say the docking of the game check was wrong.
I’m a Vikings fan and not a big Childress fan, but I have 10x more respect for what he has done as a Viking than Troy frickin Williamson.
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Rating: 3.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
i’m sure the god awful chilly really cares about respect from a wide reciever who can’t catch a ball to save his ass
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Oh wow. Big surprise he said that. As a Viking fan I have less respect for Williamson than Childress. And that is saying something. Williamson sure he can get paid for that week he was grieving and missed the game. But he should pay back all the other money he took for sucking so bad on a regular basis. Also Williamson was not a man during the greiving process. He didn’t communicate with the team and simply just left. Not too mention his grandmas funeral was not on the Sunday of the game and he could have still went to the funeral and played. Which is BS.
How is Williamson even still in the pros? Oh I heard he got a TD a couple weeks back. WOW. I’m so impressed with his 27 yards, 4 catches ,1 td this season. Can’t believe we only got a 6th round pick for that type of talent.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I’d be willing to bet that Childress doesn’t respect him as a player, either. Troy’s performance as a Viking speaks for that.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Firstly, no disrespect to Troy or his grandmother, but the guy couldn’t get his head in the game before she died, then he takes basically 2 weeks off for the funeral and still expects to be paid. Lots of players have family members die during the season and take a few days off, but not two weeks. I dislike Childress myself, but this was justified.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
He missed something like 14 days or practice. Maybe docking his pay was harsh but how many days do you need to grieve?
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Come on Williamson. Does anyone have respect for this former 1st round bust? A professional ball catcher that should have focused on the 100 meter dash. Yeah, we all agree Chilly can be a prick, but who are you to say anything? Grieve and come back to play. Don’t grieve for a month while letting your teammates down. You should donate your salary to charity you hack.
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November 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I can believe Williamson can’t see what will happen in the future, he has a tough time seeing a ball that is hitting him in the facemask. The way the guy played here he owed the Vikings a lot more than a game check. Had they upheld the decision to hold his pay it still wouldn’t have been a small ding in the amount of money the team lost on him.
If the he plays against the Vikes on Sunday do you think they will just let him run free and count on him getting knocked over by the ball? It would be interesting to sit in on the defensive backs meeting when they are talking about him.
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November 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
If I recall the situation correctly, he was given about a week off, but then took another week without any notification to the team. The team was gracious to him and he abused it. The fine was well-deserved.
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November 19th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Williamson, you’re a hack. A bust. A first round loser claiming to be a professional receiver. You should have focused on your speed not your hands. Chilly’s a prick, yeah, but you were drafted ahead of a few good players. You were suppose to help Minnesota forget about Moss. What did you do instead? You folded like a house of cards and from what I’ve seen you are doing the same in Jacksonville. Thanks for the drops you turd.
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November 19th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I have no respect for Troy Williamson. The guy shows no heart on the field and makes no effort to put his body on the line, no to mention his well-documented inablility to catch the ball. I could excuse the drops if he gave it all, but he dropped to the fetal position on kickoff returns as soon as the first defender crossed the 20, and many of his drops were due to hearing footsteps and not wanting to get hit after the catch.
But I think the funeral story is a little misleading for those not aware of the circumstances. Williamson asked for, and was given permission to, take time off in the middle of the week to be with his family after his grandmother passed (I do not recall if the funeral was during the week or the following week, but it did not conflict with the Sunday game).
Once he was with his family Williamson decided to stay with them over the weekend, thus missing the game he was not given permission to miss (or asked permission to miss). Don’t forget that coaches are game planning during the week and are assumming Williamson will be there.
So Childress was rightly pissed. He docked Williamson his game check for a game he decided not to show up for. It wasn’t until a ton of negative PR came his way, that Childress reinstated Williamson’s paycheck. (Most likley it was owner Zygi Wilf who wanted the negative press to go away that dictated that Childress reinstate Williamson’s pay; Childress is stubborn enough to disregard the negative talk and stick to his beliefs).
And don’t forget, Williamson wasn’t a guy who had given his heart and soul to the team and was denied permission to miss a game for a funeral. This was a guy who’s half-effort and careless attitude had cost the team a lot of potential points, and just skipping a game was the final straw for a guy who defines the term “first round bust.”
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
November 19th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Does anyone actually know the circumstances surrounding Childress not giving Williamson the time off? The game was after the funeral.
Yes, from a public standpoint this looks bad for Childress. But I don’t think this should be a story. What happens behind closed doors is just that. Plus, in a lot of people’s cases, if you miss time for a funeral or death in the family, you don’t get paid. I understand that everyone grieves differently, but that’s the way the job market works.
Plus, Williamson did eventually get paid. Why he is still talking about that is beyond me.
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November 19th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I don’t like Childress, but I’ll side with him on this one. Williamson went AWOL, he shouldn’t have been paid. He could have made phone calls from MPLS just as easily as he did from South Carolina.
Oh, and Troy - you know if you didn’t drop all those passes, you’d actually be treated as a superstar, and you probably would never have gotten docked.
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November 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
He and Culpepper should have a pity party. LOLZ
BTW, I think Jax should let him get behind the defense once or twice just so we could see a dropped ball clip!
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November 19th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Why is anyone even INTERVIEWING this fool?? And if they are, the questions should be more like “What are you doing in practice to make you NOT such a waste of $$??”
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November 19th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Troy Williamson has now joined the Erasmus James Ass Clown Chorus. They are first-round busts who are barely staying with their new teams.
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November 19th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Williamson took off without telling the team or anyone else where he was… what did he expect to happen???
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November 19th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I am not a Vikings fan, aside from being a fan of Adrian Peterson, but I got to agree with alot of these comments. Chilly is a prick. No doubt, but come on man, if Troy made an effort to catch the balls thrown to him, maybe there would have been some compassion or whatever. However, going AWOL…not good. The docked paycheck was probably justified. However, like someone else said,Wilf probably wanted the bad publicity to go away so they gave him his check instead of having a set and sticking with the punishment handed out to Troy.
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November 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
HAHA is this an anti-Childress post? Williamson was GOD AWFUL and had stones for hands, docking him a game’s paycheck was more a way of recouping losses on a pathetic WR then actually punishing him for going to a funeral…
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November 19th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Troy Williamson couldn’t catch a cold when he was a Viking.
If he had just caught any passes and did what the staff asked, maybe they would have worked with him on his grandmother’s funeral issue. But who wants to go out on a limb for a guy who just doesn’t seem to care about playing ball?
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