Tank Williams injured his kneecap in practice yesterday in a non-contact situation. He suffered the injury while backpedaling during 7-on-7 drills. He had to be carted off the field as a result of his injury.
Depending on which source you believe, Williams will either be out for 6-10 weeks, or his season is already over (the former diagnosis coming from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the latter coming from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune).
How smart does this make the Dwight Smith signing look? Nothing personally against Willie Offord or anything, but. . .well, Dwight Smith is just better than Willie Offord. So it appears that Smith is going to be the starter at safety by default (a job that, quite frankly, I think he would have won anyway). . .and rather than having a nickel situation of Winfield-Smoot-Sharper-Smith-Williams, we now have a combination of Winfield-Smoot-Sharper-Smith-Offord/Whitaker/Edwards/Griffin (whoever wins the job).
Here's hoping that Tank gets better soon. . .sad to see a player suffer a fluke injury like this.
[Update]: I also forgot to mention that the Dez White era is over in Minnesota. He was released when the club signed CB Tony "Bend It Like" Beckham. Good thing we didn't re-do that poll.