On Wednesday, word emerged from Chiefs receiver Dwayne Bowe of a phenomenon known as “importing,” involving veteran players flying girls in and putting them up at the team hotel.
Now, one of Bowe’s former teammates in Kansas City has disputed Bowe’s account.
“The things he’s saying are not true,” former Chiefs defensive lineman Jimmy Wilkerson told the Kansas City Star. “Security is so tight at the hotels. They wouldn’t allow your family members to come up to the rooms, let alone have girls waiting in the rooms for you. If they did that, it affects the Chiefs owners, the organization and the coaches. It makes it look like the coaches let this kind of stuff go on and I know Coach [Herm] Edwards did not do that.
“I don’t remember the San Diego trip specifically, but I can tell you there were no girls up on our level. . . .
“I was a part of that ’07 team and it looks like everybody on that team was a part of this,” Wilkerson said. “He’s talking about everybody on the team whether they’re married or they’re single. I’ve been married for about eight years. That kind of makes me mad because the married guys respect their wives but it makes us look bad. Now we have to answer to our families and to our wives and let them know we didn’t do anything like that and there was nothing like that going on.”
For that very reason, it’s impossible to accept Wilkerson’s version at face value. It’s in Wilkerson’s current interests to take the steam out of this situation, lest he spend the rest of the offseason in the crawlspace under his porch.
In contrast, Bowe had no reason to spill the beans. Thus, his version necessarily has greater credibility.
Still, we expect that more of the married members of the 2007 Chiefs will be backing up Wilkerson’s claims. Unless they prefer sleeping on gravel and/or dirt.