Vikings defensive tackle Kevin Williams isn't happy with the NFL for tacking on a fine of two additional game checks to his two-game suspension for violating the league's policy on performance-enhancing substances.
"There isn't a job in America that you do the work for free," Williams said. "Who wants to work for free? It doesn't seem fair to me to take a game check and expect you to work for free. Has that even been done before?"
The answer is yes. For example, in 2006, the NFL fined then-Vikings players Bryant McKinnie and Fred Smoot one game check apiece without suspending them for their roles in the team's infamous Love Boat incident the year before.
Williams also is angry that the NFL is basing its fine on his current $6 million salary instead of the $1 million salary he was earning when he tested positive for a banned diuretic back in 2008.
"The penalty looks good on the outside because of the two games," Williams said. "But it's crap on the inside."
Williams fought the original four-game suspension in court for three years before giving up this spring. He will be fined a little more than $1.4 million. Had he taken the punishment in 2008, it would have cost him a little more than $235,000.
"It seems like there's nothing I can do about it," Williams said. "But I got my agent [Tom Condon] looking into whether there's anything we can do about fining me based on this year's salary."
As for what he'll do the next two weeks, Williams said: "Just sit and wait. There's not much else I can do."
He downplayed the notion that having two weeks off will help his plantar fasciitis.
"I would have been out there," Williams said. "I was ready to play."
