It’s been common knowledge for anyone remotely plugged into Trent Williams’ dispute with the Washington Redskins that the distrust felt by the 31-year-old left tackle stemmed from a misdiagnosis of a cancerous tumor on his scalp.
However, until now it has been a little unclear as to what exactly went wrong for the Redskins’ medical team over the past six years since Williams initially discovered the growth.
In a detailed piece from USA TODAY’s Mike Jones, Williams explained the misgivings in detail and pointed to the numerous checkpoints along the way that finally burned all of the bridges.
Williams stayed away from the organization for months dating back to spring because he no longer trusts team doctors and officials, he said. He maintains he asked team doctors numerous times in the last six years about a growth on his head and told them he feared that it was cancerous. Doctors repeatedly classified the growth as a cyst, Williams said.
Williams told Jones of repeated attempts to get the medical staff to further look into the growth, even asking them to remove it while he was under sedation for surgery on his knee. Every time, the doctors refused, claiming that it was not a serious matter.
Of course, what happened next is well-documented. In January of this year, Williams had a biopsy of the growth, and he received a call while at the Pro Bowl informing him that it was indeed cancer and that the cancerous cells were weeks away from penetrating his skull.
There are two sides to every story, but there’s little reason to doubt Williams thus far.
