Thursday, June 5, 2008

LIONS’ ROY WILLIAMS: “I’M NOT MAD”

Posted by Michael David Smith on June 4, 2008, 3:52 p.m.
Last week we noted that wide receiver Roy Williams was one of five Lions who didn’t show up to voluntary organized team activities.

Williams’ absence was widely interpreted as the latest sign that he and the team’s top brass are not seeing eye to eye, but Williams said today that that’s not the case.

“I’m going to make a lot of money this year,” Williams. “You all can look it up. They owe me $5.8 million this year. So why would I be mad? I’m not mad. I’m not missing OTAs because I’m mad at the Detroit Lions. I’m missing because my flights got canceled. . . . I tried to get here two days in a row, and I just wasn’t coming for one day. I called the coaches. They knew where I was at. So it wasn’t a big deal.”

When it was pointed out to Williams that he could have caught a flight that would have gotten him to Monday’s OTAs, he said, “That was my fault. I booked it wrong. I booked it on the second instead of the first.”

OTAs are voluntary, which means Williams isn’t obligated to justify missing them. But it’s a little hard to believe that his contract status had nothing at all to do with his absences. Williams might not be mad, but it’s been well documented that he’s not crazy about the situation in Detroit, where he’s unlikely to get the long-term contract extension he wants. A happy player might have worked a little harder at finding an available flight.

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