Replacing Madieu Williams: Six Candidates For New Vikings Safety

Labor peace – yes, it’s coming…eventually – will bring with it a new salary cap of $120 million. Thanks to several very large contracts handed out during the first five years of Zygi Wilf‘s ownership, the Vikings will find themselves $5 million over that cap, and needing to cut salary. One player almost certain to be cut loose as part of the salary dump is Madieu Williams, who in 3 years with the Vikings has proven himself to be a marvelous humanitarian and a mediocre safety. To be fair, Williams’ struggles have not been entirely his own fault. A neck injury in camp during his first year with the team caused him to miss 7 games. In the 9 games he did play that year, he was actually not half-bad, intercepting 2 passes and notching 42 tackles. But things only went downhill for Williams after that flash of effectiveness to close out 2008. By 2010 he had become perhaps the worst member of a defensive backfield riddled with bad players. His year came t...