Trent Williams maintains that the way the Washington Redskins misdiagnosed a health condition he was dealing with for several years could have cost him his life, and the All-Pro tackle shared some more details this week about just how dismissive team doctors were when he repeatedly expressed concerns.
Williams says he first informed the Redskins in 2013 that he was concerned about a growth on his head. Team doctors repeatedly told him it was a benign cyst. When Williams asked to be sent to a dermatologist in 2016, he says he was once again told the growth was a cyst and nothing to worry about.
While speaking with Mike Jones of USA Today this week, Williams revealed that he asked Redskins team doctors to remove the growth on his head on three separate occasions. The first was in 2017, when he was going to be sedated for a knee procedure and asked if the growth could be removed at the same time. Team doctors reassured Williams that it “wasn’t that serious.” He asked about the removal again during two separate procedures in 2018 — one where he was sedated for thumb surgery and another for a different knee procedure. He says he was told to wait until the offseason.
Not long after that, in January 2019, Williams had a biopsy of the growth and was informed it was cancerous. Doctors told him the cancer cells were mere weeks away from penetrating his skull. At that point, he says team owner Daniel Snyder flew him all around in a private jet so he could get the proper medical care.
Williams was placed on the Reserve/Non-Football Injury list this week, which means Washington can keep him on the roster without having to pay him. There are also some questions about whether his contract, which has two years remaining on it, will toll. Williams said he still has no intention of playing for the Redskins in 2020, and he feels any effort they are making to investigate the handling of his medical situation is only to cover themselves.
“I mean, I do want to play football still and I’m not a free agent until after the 2020 season, so who knows,” Williams told USA Today. “But the bridge has definitely been burned, and any efforts now, basically are, in my opinion, pretty much just CYA (cover your a–).”
All of the allegations Williams has made against Washington are incredibly troubling, and he is not the only player who has accused the team of that sort of thing. If the Redskins want the Williams situation to go away, their best bet is to trade him this offseason.
