At the ripe old age of 37, Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle Pat Williams was finally on the winning side of a playoff game last weekend. And now that he’s one more win for the Super Bowl, he feels comfortable admitting that he once questioned whether the Vikings could ever reach this point.
Williams tells Don Banks of SI.com that when he left the Buffalo Bills to sign with the Vikings as a free agent in 2005, he was shocked at how badly things were run.
“When I came here, there were a lot of good guys, but the chemistry wasn’t good,’' Williams said. “After my first year here, I doubted whether I’d made the right decision. When I first came here, it wasn’t even like a pro team. It was terrible.”
That doesn’t speak well for Mike Tice, who was the Vikings’ head coach in 2005, or for Red McCombs, the owner who signed Williams. But Williams says coach Brad Childress and owner Zygi Wilf have been a breath of fresh air.
“But since Zygi came in, with the new coaching staff, and an owner willing to spend the money for good players and make things first class, everything changed,” Williams said. “They got the chemistry right, and basically everybody fell in and got behind coach Childress.’'
Although he’s three years younger than Brett Favre, Williams is old by NFL defensive lineman standards. But he sounds like a man who’s happy enough in Minnesota that he could stick around a while.
"[E]veryone’s feeling young around here this season,” Williams said. “That’s what winning does.’'
