Ricky Williams has no regrets about temporarily stepping away from football in 2004, just two years after winning the NFL running title. He also does not regret missing the entire 2006 season after violating the league’s drug abuse policy. Williams did not even regret retiring a year before the Ravens – his third and final NFL team – won the Super Bowl. Instead of hoisting the Lombardi trophy, Williams was actually working as a cameraman when the Ravens defeated the 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII.
If Williams did regret his NFL career, it was that he did not retire as a member of the Dolphins, a sentiment he recently shared during an appearance on The Greg Cote Show Podcast.
“I’m not the kind of person who’s very sorry,” says Williams, who recently released his own podcast. “I regret it in my football career, and it was that I did not complete my career as a dolphin. It would have been great to play my last year. [in Miami]. I probably would have played a few more years if I had stayed in Miami and I would have had the opportunity to become the Dolphins’ leading rusher. I was maybe only 400 meters away. ‘
Williams actually finished just 301 yards further than passing Hall of Famer Larry Csonka as the Dolphins’ everyday chase leader. Csonka, the starting fullback of the Dolphins when Miami won Super Bowls rugby in the early 1970s, left Miami temporarily before retiring as the Dolphin after the 1979 season. Williams wishes he would have done the same.
“It’s something that’s going to be hard to live off, that I did not end up in Miami,” Williams said. “The Saints (Williams’ first NFL team) were great, but I consider my career a Miami Dolphin. The way I came back, as I was embraced by the fans, I will always love Dolphins. I will always remember my time as a dolphin. ‘
Many fans may not remember it, but Williams was at the abyss of greatness at the turn of the century. The 1998 Heisman Trophy winner, who broke Tony Dorsett’s 22-year record as the most important college footballer’s career-leading leader, rushed Williams in his second NFL season for 1,000 yards while helping the Saints win their first ever playoff game. to win. Williams rushed more than 1,200 meters in 2001 before being traded to Miami before the start of the 2002 season. That season, Williams made his first All-Pro pick while leading the NFL by 1,853 yards. The 5-foot-10, 226-pound Williams had a devastating combination of power, speed and agility that enabled him to beat teams with both strength and finesse.
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Williams said there were many different factors that led to his sudden retirement just before the start of the 2004 season. One factor was the fact that he was coming off what he described as a “horrible” 2003 season, which led him to lead the NFL for a second consecutive year. But unlike the 2002 season, when he won a NFL title in 2003 while averaging 4.8 yards per carry, Williams was only 3.5 yards per carry in 2003, his worst average since his rookie season. Along with the feeling that he had fallen back for the first time in his athletic career, Williams grew tired of the Dolphins’ overconfidence in him. Part of that was changing the team at the quarterback from Jay Fiedler to Brian Griese. Williams said former Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt admitted so much when the two ran into each other in the Super Bowl last year.
“[Wannstedt] a little laugh and he said, ‘You know, I learned a lot. And one of the things I learned is how to trust my quarterback. When you play, I do not trust my quarter. And if he throws incompletely or a pass that seems to be almost intercepted, I’ll go on the headphones and tell Norv [Turner], just give it to Ricky. Just give it to Ricky. ‘
“I had a lot of cars in 2002, but I also had a lot of yards. I had more cars in 2003, but I had about 500 meters less. It hurts. If you get 25, you carry.” a game, but you get 100 yards, it does not hurt so much. You get 25 carries a game and you get 50 yards, it hurts. The two-yard wins. ‘
After drawing the wrath of Dolphins fans in 2004, Williams earned himself back into Miami’s collective heart with a late career revival. In 2008, after a two-year streak that allowed him to play in just one NFL game, Williams earned 819 all-purpose yards while helping the Dolphins win the AFC East. A year later, at the age of 32, Williams passed more than 1,100 meters and 11 times, his best season since his sudden retirement five years earlier. Williams enjoyed another productive season in Miami before assisting Baltimore in the Super Bowl game in 2011. Instead of trying to keep a turn for the last time, Williams decided to retire.
While injuries, a suspension and his short retirement were incorporated into his career statistics, Williams was still able to retire with more than 10,000 careers in his career, a milestone that only 30 other runners reached. Williams is also just one of three people (the other two are Tony Dorsett and DeAngelo Williams) to rush more than 6,000 yards in college and in the NFL. Williams also overcame social anxiety that became more challenging in the aftermath of his infamous magazine cover photo, when Saints coach Mike Ditka wore a wedding dress. While not funny at the time, Williams can laugh about the incident two decades later.
“I was in a limo with coach Ditka (after the photo shoot) to go back to the training facility,” Williams recalls. “He had a cigar in his hand, and he was like, ‘I don’t know what they did to put you on that wedding dress, but I would never have done it.’ I thought to myself, “Why are you telling me this now? Why did you not say that before the photo shoot?” “I’re only now, maybe in the last five years, I’m really starting to live the one. I can now look at it and laugh and say it was funny.”