Ricky Williams has not regretted temporarily stepping down from football in 2004, just two years after winning the NFL Runners-up title in 2004. He also has no regrets about missing the entire 2006 season after violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Williams, who retired a year before his third and final NFL victory for the Ravens, won the Super Bowl. Instead of waving the Lombardy Trophy, Williams was actually working as a cameraman when the Ravens beat the 49ers in the Super Bowl XLVII.
If Williams has one regret from his roller coaster NFL career, it’s that he didn’t retire as a member of the Dolphins, a spirit he shared during a recent appearance. Greg Cote Show Podcast.
“I’m not the kind of person who has a lot of regrets,” said Williams, who recently started his own podcast. “I have one regret in my football career, and that was that I didn’t finish my career as a dolphin. I played very well last year. [in Miami]. If I had lived in Miami and I probably had the chance to be the all-time leading rusher of the Dolphins I would probably have played a few more years. I was probably only 400 yards away. ”
Williams actually finished just 301 yards away from Hall of Famer Larry Sisonka as the Dolphins’ all-time rushing leader. Kansanka, who started the Dolphins ‘fullback’ when Miami won the back-to-back Super Bowls in the early 1970s, temporarily leaving Miami before retiring as a dolphin after the 1979 season Williams wishes he had done the same.
“It’s something that will be hard to live with, that I didn’t end up in Miami,” Williams said. “The Saints (Williams’ first NFL team) were great, but I see my career as the Miami Dolphins. The way I came back, the way I was adopted by the fans, I’ll always love the Dolphins fans and I’ll always remember my time as a Dolphin Will remain. ‘
Not many fans remember, but Williams was on the verge of greatness at the turn of the century. The 1998 Heisman Trophy winner who broke Tony Dorsett’s 22-year-old record as the leader to take part in a college football career, Williams ran for 1000 yards in his second NFL season while helping the Saints win their first playoff game. Williams ran for 1,200 yards in 2001 before trading in Miami before the start of the 2002 season. That season, Williams earned his first All-Pro selection while leading the NFL with 1,853 yards. The 5-foot-10, 226-pound Williams had a devastating combination of strength, speed and agility that would allow him to beat teams with both strength and penalty.
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Williams said there were a number of different factors that led to his sudden retirement just before the start of the 2004 season. One factor is the fact that he was returning from what he described as a “horror” in the 2003 season, in which he played for the NFL for another straight year. The victory was silly. But unlike the 2002 season, when he won the NFL Rushing title with an average of 8. y yards per carry, Williams averaged only y.ards yards per carry in 2003, the worst average since his rookie season. With the feeling that he had expressed grief for the first time in his athletic career, Williams was fed up with the Dolphins’ over-reliance on him. Part of that was the team’s change from Jay Fidler to Brian Grease’s quarterback. Williams said former Dolphins coach Dave Weinstein admitted so much when the two ran into each other in last year’s Super Bowl.
“[Wannstedt] He kind of laughed and said, ‘You know, I’ve learned a lot. And one of the things I learned is how to trust my quarterback. I didn’t trust my quarterback when you played. And so, if he throws incompletely or feels like a pass he almost stopped, I’ll reach for the headset and tell Norway [Turner], Just give it to Ricky. Just give it to Ricky. ‘
“I had a set of yards in 2006, but I also had a set of yards. I had more yards in 2003 but I had about 500 yards. It hurts. When you can get 25 games but you get 100 yards, It doesn’t hurt so badly. You’re getting 25 games and you’re getting 50 yards, which hurts. It’s a two-yard advantage. “
After drawing the voices of Dolphins fans in 2004, Williams entered the collective heart of Miami with a late career resurgence. In 2008, after a two-year hiatus, seeing him in just one NFL game, Williams scored 819 all-purpose yards while helping the Dolphins win the AFC East. A year later, at age 32, Williams ran for 1,100 yards and 11 touchdowns, the best season since his sudden retirement five years ago. Williams enjoyed his second productive season in Miami in 2011 before Baltimore entered the Super Bowl. Instead of trying to hang on to the last shot in the ring, Williams decided to retire.
While injuries, suspension and his short retirement cut his career figures, Williams was still able to retire with more than 10,000 career rushing yards, reaching just 30 other running backs. Williams is also one of three people (the other two being Tony Dorsett and Dianelo Williams) both running for 6,000 yards in college leagues and in the NFL. Williams also overcame the social unrest that was further challenged by Saints coach Mike Ditka wearing a wedding dress after a cover photo of his infamous magazine. It wasn’t funny at the time, Williams might laugh about what happened some two decades later.
“I was in a limo with coach Ditka (after the photo shoot) back at the training facility,” Williams recalled. “She had a cigar in her hand, and it was like, ‘I don’t know what they did to get you that wedding dress, but I would never have done it.’ I was thinking to myself, ‘Why are you telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell me this before the photo shoot?’ “I’m just now, maybe in the last five years, really starting to live down to it. Now I can look at it and laugh and say it was funny.”
