Trent Williams believed for years growth on his head was benign cyst

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Washington tackle Trent Williams stayed silent for months. He now sees no reason to continue to keep quiet.

In a lengthy interview with 106.7 The Fan in D.C., Williams addressed a variety of issues related to the health condition flowing from what he believed to be simply an unsightly cyst on his head.

“I know the way the picture is painted is that I had skepticism for five-and-a-half years of this being something more,” Williams said. “That’s not the case. I just kept going back because it was strictly cosmetic, man. It was strictly cosmetic, man.”

Williams said he wanted to get the growth removed because of how it looked, not because of what it could be. He said that team doctors shared his lack of urgency.

“I wasn’t begging them to take it off because I thought it was something that would be detrimental to my health,” Williams said. “I just wanted it gone. It was an eyesore to me.”

Williams said he’d wanted to get the growth removed while separately getting surgery performed on his thumb and knee, but that “for varying reasons” that couldn’t happen.

“So what happened is the plastic surgeon,” Williams said, “when he was in there numbing me up to cut the piece off or whatever and he just kept saying, ‘I’m not sold that this is a cyst.’ And I was like you know, ‘Trust me, man. The doctors I’ve been going to for four or five years . . . every doctor told me the same thing. It’s a cyst. I just want it gone. Cut that shit out. Please.’

“And he called one of the docs — the team doctors — and he reassured him that they’ve been looking at it and this is what they think it is and so he said, ‘All right, I’m gonna go ahead and cut it off.'”

That’s a damning allegation, one that should be fairly easy to prove or debunk with a review of the medical records. Some think Williams has declined to cooperate with a joint NFL-NFL Players Association committee because he fears the truth coming out. Williams explained, as surmised here, that he simply sees no benefit in going along with the team’s attempt to whitewash the situation.

“It’s a P.R. move,” Williams said. “It’s a PR move to say, ‘Look, we’re trying to . . . .’ If at the end of the day, it said, ‘Yeah, we’re wrong, here goes your money,’ or ‘Here goes we cost you X amount of dollars this season,’ then yeah, but that isn’t the case. All it is is just writing a report and saying, ‘Hey, this doctor could have did better. Hey, this doctor could have did better.’ Like, who wins in that? You get what I’m saying? It ain’t like I’m going to court, to where I can go through an investigation and they say someone’s guilty. Here goes the reparations. That isn’t the case, and if that was, I’d be all for it. But since it isn’t, then what’s the point of wasting my time?”

That raises an obvious question: Why not sue? Why not seek compensation for alleged malpractice?

For now, Williams isn’t even inclined to challenge the decision to place him on the non-football injury list and not pay him. He wants one thing and one thing only: To be gone from Washington.

Although Washington seems to be intent on trading him, wouldn’t it make sense for the team to offer to terminate his contract in exchange for a full and complete waiver and release of any and all claims that could be made under the labor deal or in any court of law? As P.R. moves go, that could be the best one that an inherently dysfunctional franchise has made in years.

It’s also the right thing to do. Which rarely gets considered in situations like this. But which should.