Cleveland Browns: K’Waun Williams Situation Concerning
By Peter Smith
The incident with K’Waun Williams suggests that even though the names change, the Cleveland Browns continue to do business the wrong way.
It was announced Wednesday that K’Waun Williams failed his physical with the Chicago Bears after being claimed off of waivers on Tuesday from the Cleveland Browns. Williams had been released by the Cleveland Browns to get their roster down to 75 players. The Bears’ medical staff failed Williams for an ankle injury he suffered August 6th in the Orange and Brown scrimmage. Per their medical staff, Williams is suffering from bone spurs and requires surgery.
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Williams opted to sit himself out of the Browns’ preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, citing the ankle as being too sore. The team announced before the game that Williams was sitting out for personal reasons.
Williams then did not practice and reportedly was not with the team as he sought a second opinion, believing his ankle was more severely injured than the team. That Wednesday, Williams was seen by an independent specialist at the Cleveland Clinic. The specialist told him he had bone spurs and needed surgery to play at the level of a professional athlete.
Sources, likely from the team, told Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com that Williams was considering retirement the night of the preseason game. A source close to Williams, probably his agent, told Cabot that it was about his injured ankle and Williams had no intent of retiring. The team opted to suspend Williams for two weeks and a game check for what they deemed “multiple violations of team rules”, which Williams has since appealed.
The team appears to be contending that Williams was a malcontent, who was unhappy with his spot on the depth chart and didn’t want to play as a result of it. The suggestion is that Williams cited the ankle issues later and then used that as an excuse to miss practice as a message to the organization.
If any or part of that is true, Williams is responsible for it, but it mostly comes off as noise meant to distract from the main point. Focusing on the he said, he said part aspect of the story rather than the facts.
Williams’ decision to get a second opinion on his ankle was warranted as the both the independent specialist he saw as well as the Bears’ doctors came to the same conclusion.
What did the Browns’ medical staff see? And if Williams decided to hold himself as everyone agrees, why did the Browns clear him to play in the first place? Hue Jackson and the organization as a whole have refused to comment to this point.
Whatever Williams did wrong, this still raises questions about the Browns’ medical staff and how much trust players should trust in what they’re being told. This is an underlying issue league-wide, but having the Browns front and center is obviously problematic.
There is certainly a gray area where the Bears’ medical staff could’ve had an extremely conservative opinion on Williams’ ankle and failed him as a result. Normally, that happens when a substantial contract is involved a team doesn’t want to be on the hook for or a trade, where the team wants to be sure they got what they expected.
This wasn’t a trade and Williams makes peanuts. He was on a three-year deal as an undrafted free agent and earned $420,000 as a rookie and $510,000 this past year. No bonuses, no risks, just a cheap contract on an effective player.
The Bears were legitimately looking for slot corner help. Williams would’ve been the best corner on the Bears’ roster had he passed his physical, both because Williams has been effective in his two years in the league and because the Bears are dealing with injuries at that position. It stands to reason they wanted him to be able to contribute for them and he simply can’t in his current state.
Yet, he was suspended because he was concerned about his own health and wanted to get it checked out independently? What message does that send to other players in the locker room, especially those young players that are not established in the league?
Trust the team medical staff or risk being suspended and fined, perhaps released.
And this where the team could help itself. They could have come out and state that the organization supports Williams getting a second opinion as it would with any player, but that Williams was fined for the other alleged issues.
Obviously, they also have to mean it. If that is indeed the case, the team is doing itself a disservice by not coming out and saying it. As it currently stands, it appears as though Williams was punished because he went outside the organization and the team wanted to make an example out of him.
This may not have a huge ripple effect to players, but it does to agents. They talk, these type of situations come up and agents determine what they believe is true. Whether it’s signing an extension, going there in free agency or where an agent suggests an undrafted free agent goes after the draft, this is something that comes up in their thought process.
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This also has the potential to cause a rift between players and the medical staff. Football careers are short and health is everything. If players don’t trust what they are hearing from the medical staff, it has the potential to be a disaster.
Worse, if Williams was only interested in asserting his own right to get a second opinion, which it turns out he was smart to do, the Browns fed the media a story to smear him. It’s imperative the NFLPA do a full investigation to find out exactly what happened to ensure the players are being treated per the collectively bargained rules.
The optics of the situation look bad for the Browns. A team that never seems to do things the right way is once again involved in a negative story and the season hasn’t even started. The one constant over the last several years is the owner, Jimmy Haslam. Haslam keeps insisting that he’s learning from his mistakes and he wants to bring Cleveland a winner..
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The same Jimmy Haslam that paid a substantial fine to for a scandal involving Pilot J over rebates looks to be in charge of another organization that doesn’t appear overly concerned with following the rules. He, or whomever he has in place to oversee these matters, needs to be proactive and ensure the Browns are being run the right way to overhaul their image, especially as it relates to the health of their players. For now though, new front office, new head coach, same ole Browns.