Ben Johnson was about a minute into an opening statement Wednesday filled with the typical musings of a first-year coach — he praised his players’ work in the weight room and bemoaned their struggles lining up in the wrong place at practice — when he did something his predecessor rarely attempted.
He tackled a subject head on.
“It’s come to my attention,” Johnson said with a wry smile, “that the quarterback’s been out in the media over the last week.”
That was an understatement. Last week, an excerpt of Seth Wickersham’s “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,” detailed how Williams and his father Carl decided he’d be best-suited being drafted by the Vikings in 2024.