Ricky Williams: Run Ricky Run Away

ricky_williams Ricky Williams: Run Ricky Run Away

If you've been shipwrecked and living in a cave for the last week, you need to know that Ricky Williams has retired in his prime at age 27 leaving the Miami Dolphins and their 2004 season in perilous turmoil before a single snap is taken. Here are some recommended articles chronicling Ricky's sudden departure from the game of professional football;

There has been no shortage of good writing on this topic in the wake of Ricky's big announcement so I'll try not expand too much. For starters, I personally was not surprised Ricky Williams went out this way. He was never a good personality fit for the NFL and that was obvious to all who knew him and knew of him.

What is surprising is how badly run the Miami Dolphins organization is. Dan Marino's last minute decision to stay away from the Dolphins front office is even more self-evident now. Ricky's agent Leigh Steinberg, Dolphins general manager Rick Spielman, head coach Dave Wannstedt and some Dolphins players all heard Ricky Williams make verbal overtures to them last season that he was contemplating retirement. Neither Wannstedt, nor Spielman figured Ricky would walk away from the money, about $6 million in salary and endorsements this year alone. And for 99.9% of the players that populate the NFL, they would've been right in that assumption. However, when you run an organization it's your responsibility to make it your business to understand the unique needs and psyche of your best and most mission-critical employees. When that employee is the centerpiece of your entire offensive gameplan, that element of top-down communication becomes even more paramount. There was a long laundry list of warning signs that should have made the Dolphins organization make certain they had another bonafide starting running back option that would not only have given them insurance for an eventuality like this, but most importantly it could've deflected some of the burden from the shoulders of their overworked and unpredictable franchise runner. Think Stephen Davis/Deshaun Foster in Carolina for example.

Perhaps the largest error that led to Ricky's sudden departure was the management decision to keep Dave Wannstedt as the head coach of this team. No NFL head coach has been hanging by a thinner career thread in recent years than Wannstedt. What happens to a coach when he senses his job is in jeopardy? He does everything he can to save his own ass. When the New York Jets came to town for a meaningless game at the end of the 2003 regular season, with the playoffs out of reach for either team, and Ricky Williams tired and sore from leading the NFL in workload for the second straight year, Dave Wannstedt went back to the well again and rode Ricky hard to try and scratch out a hollow win and save his job. He got the win, he saved his job, but broke the spirit of the one player he could ill afford to be without. That serves as a microcosm that exposes how poorly the Dolphins truly understood and managed their enigmatic star. Ricky's 775 carries over the last two seasons is an NFL record for a running back in that timeframe. That amounts to extreme punishment on the body and mind for even the most hardened and committed professional football players. But for a soft-spoken, mild-mannered, wandering soul like Ricky Williams, the damage accrued was enough of an impetus to lose his taste for the game and business of football entirely.

Had Ricky made his decision public just a couple of weeks sooner, the Dolphins could've signed perennial workhorse Eddie George to replace him. In the end, Ricky Williams did nothing to help the Miami Dolphins prepare for life without him. And the Miami Dolphins did just as little to prevent Ricky Williams from burning out in the peak of his career. Both sides got what they deserved. Ricky Williams while certainly not impoverished in any way will suffer massive financial loss as a result of this choice. The Miami Dolphins organization, and in particular the stewards running the ship, are likely to lose their jobs, and lose on the football field for the foreseeable future. This event is neither a tragedy nor worthy of any kind of applause. It's the unique story of Ricky Williams. In time, Ricky's football accolades will fade away, lost in the abyss of NFL statistics, and replaced by the dubious lasting legacy of how he quit the game of football with so many yards and dollars left to gain. And right now, sitting on a Thai beach with his new friend Lenny Kravitz, no drug tests looming on the horizon, no coaches screaming instructions in his ear, that seems perfectly fine with Ricky Williams.

He's done. Perfectly Ricky, right up until the end. He's done running for money. Now he runs free. - Miami Herald

I'm finally free [Miami Herald]
Photo: [AP]

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Ricky Williams: Run Ricky Run Away