Funeral Not a Good Enough Excuse for Vikings

Troy Williamson found that missing a game to be with your family after a funeral was a very costly decision. The Vikings decided to fine Williamson a game check, roughly $25,000, after he stayed in South Carolina to be with his family after his grandmother's funeral instead of returning to play in the team's win over the Chargers last Sunday.

Williamson seemed pretty upset when reporters asked him about the fine, and he also seemed pretty defiant that he didn't care what the Vikings thought.

"I don't care if (the Vikings) would have took my pay for the rest of the year, I was going home," Williamson said. "It wouldn't have mattered to me. No matter what (Brad Childress) would have said, if I had to stay up here or not, I would have been at my house (in South Carolina) for that week."

Like most difficult decisions there's a lot of gray in this one. On one hand it's very understandable that Williamson wanted to be with his family. His grandmother was a very important part of the family, and he also got to spend some time with his brother who is in a coma after a car accident. All of that seems reasonable. It's WIlliamson's decision whether to stay in South Carolina or come back for the game.

But it's hard to peg the Vikings as unfeeling ogres in this one either. Williamson missed all of last week for his grandmother and did not return to Minnesota until Wednesday, so it's not like he was fined for missing a day or two. You could hope for a boss that tells you to "take all the time you need," but when you're working in a business that only has 16 real work days, it's hard to skip one of those, especially when the employer already gave you five days (Monday through Friday) to tend to the details of the funeral. If Williamson wanted to stay away, that may have been his choice, but it's also fair for the Vikings to say that he should take that weekend as unpaid leave.

So what do you all think? Were the Vikings fair to punish Williamson for missing a game, even if he had a reasonable excuse?