MKRob Sports

It was late August 2008 when Minnesota Vikings teammates Kevin and Pat Williams learned they had tested positive for a banned substance during a training camp drug test.

The confidential letter with the National Football League shield on the return address arrived via FedEx to Vikings headquarters in Eden Prairie and was delivered to each player’s locker stall.

“It ain’t good news when you see those,” Pat Williams told a Hennepin County judge Wednesday.

Bracing for inevitable suspensions and vowing to fight what they considered unfair discipline, the unrelated Williamses shared their predicament with an identical inner circle — their wives, their agents and Vikings coach Brad Childress — three months before the NFL announced their four-game suspensions.

The Williamses, who accuse the NFL of violating Minnesota drug-testing laws in disciplining them, described their fight in testimony before Judge Gary Larson, who could decide whether the defensive linemen will be on the field for the Vikings when the 2010 season opens in September.

An injunction by Larson has blocked the league from suspending the Williamses while their case is pending.

The Williamses subpoenaed Childress and Rob Brzezinski, the Vikings vice president of football operations, to testify on their behalf as they try to prove the NFL is their employer — not the Vikings — under Minnesota’s Drug and Alcohol in the Workplace Act.

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