12/03/24
November 24, 2004
Guess who's back? : Ricky reinstated this year? What would you do if you were the Dolphins management?
I wonder if they'd rather have the money (after a long drawn-out process) or the two picks they might get for Williams? I'd trade him. Bob Marley has a better chance of lining up in the Miami backfield. And if someone offered me two second rounders, I'd jump on it.
posted by 86 at 10:52 AM on November 24, 2004
Well is either play or the team gets 8.5 mill back..uh, what's it gonna be?.
posted by LROD at 11:17 AM on November 24, 2004
Well, if he really comes back with any effort and gusto, he'll be worth that money. As it is, though, I've heard that a trade would be a 6th round pick with a possible 1st or 2nd rounder the year after keyed to performance. Which sounds fair. I'm not entirely sure he's coming back, though. Until I see him come out of the foothills and declare intent, I'm still skeptical.
posted by chicobangs at 01:10 PM on November 24, 2004
Miami will take him back, won't play him (he'll be suspended anyway), will get whatever they can for him in trade during the offseason, even if it is at 50 cents on the dollar or less. Then wash their hands of him and the whole fiasco.
posted by bawanaal at 01:26 PM on November 24, 2004
There's always baseball too. I do wonder if Ricky knows Bo.
posted by jasonspaceman at 02:07 PM on November 24, 2004
Get the $8 mill and get rid of him.
posted by roberts at 02:20 PM on November 24, 2004
I expect that Williams is good enough that several run-starved teams would want him. But it's worth nothing that two coaches who counted on Williams have been fired. If any team takes a gamble on him now, it won't be one where the coach is also the GM.
posted by rcade at 03:56 PM on November 24, 2004
One thing I've not understood; as I gathered, Ricky was cash-plus when he left, although he passed on the remaining $5m on his contract by walking. However, the Dolphins then sued him for breach of contract, demanding that the bonus money he'd been fronted be returned to them (though it wasn't clear to me that it was all signing bonus money, as opposed to earned bonus money like numeric achievement bonuses (1,000 yards, that sort of thing)). In effect, they were declaring bonus money as an "advance payment" on the full completion of the contract, and that all of it need be returned if the contract wasn't completed. So, if the league reinstates him- regardless of whether the Dolphins play him or not, which seems highly unlikely- am I correct in believing that he no longer owes that $8.6m? That the Dolphins might then be able to dock his pay for the missed 10+ games, but not the $8.6m already- paid- bonus- money? Those questions aside, I sometimes think I'm the only person who admires Ricky Williams. Most athletes are tagged, rightly so, with the label of shallow and self-centered. While I don't know Ricky personally, his actions are almost noble, in a way. He leaves the game because he says he realizes he isn't playing with his heart in it, and his quotes from that Ayurveda center article suggest he's trying to find a better person in himself- one less attached to "ego", more on a spiritual quest.
"Ayurveda deals with using your environment to put yourself in balance,'' he said. "I've realized, both on a psychological and physical level, that the things we do in football don't bring more harmony to your life. They just bring more disharmony."
"I loved playing football, but the reasons I loved football were just to feed my ego," Williams said. "And any time you feed your ego, it's a one-way street. ... There were so many things I had to deal with that erased the positives I got from playing the game that it wasn't worth it. It's like eating a Big Mac and drinking a Diet Coke.''Even athletes tired of the game continue to play out of habit, or ritual, or because they just can't imagine what else they'd do with their lives. Ricky rightly recognized that hey, he probably has less passion for the game than many fans in the stands would have if they were on the field. Why not spend these prime years of his life travelling the world, meditating in northern California, etc? I believe he's trying to get his head on right, to become healthy not just in a ripped gym rat physique way, but in a deeper way that will if successful last far longer than his playing career. And I for one applaud that!! Contrary to the attitudes expressed in relation to "the Riot", young fit black men are not simply organ grinder's monkeys who must dance when we demand it, be "grateful" for their position in life, and not fight back when we throw peanuts at them or bait them.
Williams, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1998 at the University of Texas, said for the last 15 years he has viewed himself "the way everybody else views me in terms of things a football player should be, things that a black person should be, things that a 27-year-old should be. You need to really let go of all those things and dig into yourself and find out who you really are."Ricky recognized, as all of us recognize, that he is not his job, that his job is not his life or his full purpose. Yet how many of us grow fat and sedentary at our computer desk jobs, knowing this is not the life for us either, but lacking the will to give up the easier life of affluent paychecks and a steady job for really challenging ourselves and maybe risking a lot to be who we are really meant to be? We who sit and type frantic, snarky comments at the guy who walked away from millions to pursue himself, yet are too cowardly to walk away from mid-to-high five-figure salaries to pursue our real passions.... what cowards we be. Besides... if he is succesful on his spiritual quest for fulfillment and meaning, then maybe he does return to the NFL- only this time instead of being like most college kids, simply stumbling into the next phase of life (in ricky's case, from high school -> college -> NFL) not because it's what you want, but because it's easy, laid out, and expected of you... Ricky if he returned would do so with incredible focus and drive. Anyway... maybe I'm alone in this, but I say bravo Ricky Williams.
posted by hincandenza at 12:23 AM on November 25, 2004
I've wondered why the reaction to the unexpected retirement of Ricky Williams is so much different than the reaction to Barry Sanders or Jim Brown. Was it all about the timing?
posted by rcade at 06:50 AM on November 25, 2004
Wait fot the $9m(approx) to arrive in the mail.