This is old news, but here is my 2 cents:
Ignore everything you’ve read and heard.
Ricky Williams did not retire.Call this breaking news, a scoop, this just in, or any other hackneyed media phrase you can conjure.
Just know this: Ricky Williams did not retire.
He quit.
Exactly. Williams gets the nod for most self-centered athlete in the history of the Universe. How he could wait until now to do this to his teammates is reprehensible and inexcusable. You don’t do that to people who are counting on you.
While we are talking about football, congrats to Coach Cowher:
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher signed a two-year contract extension Monday — the second time since 2001 he has agreed to a new deal after his team missed the playoffs the preceding season.
The extension, which carries through the 2007 season, is expected to keep Cowher’s salary competitive with those of the game’s highest-paid head coaches. Cowher’s current deal pays him $3 million per season, and team president Art Rooney II said the coach was given a raise in his new contract.
Cowher agreed to his current contract, which runs through the 2005 season, after the Steelers rebounded from consecutive losing seasons by going 9-7 in 2000 but still missed the playoffs.
The 47-year-old Cowher has a 115-76-1 record in 12 seasons, with only three losing seasons. His seven division titles are the fifth most in NFL coaching history, and the Steelers have reached the playoffs 12 times under Cowher despite missing them four of the last six seasons.
Not long before my beloved Steelers take the field.
Slartibartfast
Not to defend Williams, but he’s had obvious problems fitting into the pro football life, and he’s also got obvious problems with self-expression. If you really expected better from him, you didn’t really know him all that well. This is exactly the sort of exit we all should have expected from Williams.
Not that I wasn’t caught by surprise like nearly everyone else.
jeff
Boy, remember all those scumbag Eagles fans (and I’m an Eagles fan, just not one of the scumbag ones) who booed Donovan McNabb on draft day because they wanted Ricky Williams?
It’s kinda hard to find too many people in this town willing to admit to that now. Of course, the networks are always nice enough to show the ones stupid enough to put their mugs on camera.
physics geek
As a Dolphins’ fan, I was looking forward to this season. Not so much now, though.
Ricky’s from a different planet than the rest of us. If he’d have retired after last season, that would have been fine. But waiting until just before training camp? After coming to the March mini-camp(or whatever it’s called)? And after all the other front line RB’s have been taken? That displays a complete lack of concern for his teamates. But it sure doesn’t seem to bother Ricky any.
shark
Fair asessment BUT- hey, the Dolphins can cut people at any time. NFL teams cut people all the time w/o warning and w/o regard for their well being.
Looks like it can work both ways sometimes.
platosearwax
As a lifelong Dolphin’s fan, I have a few choice words for Ricky. But I won’t clutter your comments with my profanity.
But hey, my second favorite team is the Steelers so good for Cowher.
And just because I am writing here, do you know how hard it is to follow NFL from Norway? We only get the Monday night game and it starts at 3 in the morning.
M. Scott Eiland
Better that he retire than stay and do a half-assed job. On the other hand, if he changes his mind, there’s no way in hell I’d want him on a team I owned–who’s to say he won’t do it again? Between that and the fact that even six-fgure fines don’t seem to discourage him from smoking dope and getting caught, the Dolphins might be better off in the long run without this guy.
John Cole
Shark- When they cut people it is to make the team better. Not to screw themselves by cutting the only player they have at a position.
S-Train
Blah! Blah! Blah! He retired. His right. He’s not under-contract NOT to retire. That is the risks of managing a football team. Anything can happen.
Now if Ricky Williams was horribly injured in a car accident, would that have suited you better John? But it’s the fact that he’s physically healthy and can play and NOT AROUND is what’s bothering you? Choice or no choice, that is life.
Dodd
I find this statement difficult to reconcile with the existence of Cris Carter and Randy Moss.
S-Train
I can mention a few other athletes that are WAY MORE “self-centered” than Ricky Williams (I think he is more strange than self-centered):
Kobe Bryant
Cris Carter
Oscar De La Hoya
Missmck
Ricky is suffering from a real medical illness and if you can’t see that than you are all crazy. He has a human right to do what he needs to take care of himself and I hardly think that any football season is more important than the suffering of a human being. Get over it and leave the man alone. Where is your compassion – we are not talking about just a player but a person with his own rights and his own reasons; who worked very hard for all of you and owes you nothing. If it was diabetes or a heart condition that made him retire, would you still call him selfish?
Justin Ogren
I believe people haven’t really taken to the account that Ricky Williams is a human being, he has society anxiety disorder. I’ve had small bouts of it during depression, panic disorder and OCD. What Ricky Williams is doing right now is because he basically had to go through a drug test everyday from the NFL and he couldn’t take it anymore, he quit once he smoked weed and took the test, because he realized he needed the real stuff that works for him rather than the man-made pharmacy stuff. As someone who is on Luvox, and been on Paxil (as what he once took), anafranil and risperdal….. I also do smoke marijuana to relieve the tension and anxiety associated with the anxiety disorder as it does help in a way other drugs can’t. There’s less of a gaurantee with current meds on the market with Prozac and all of it’s cousins since we don’t know what the long term effects are. I’m really seriously thinking about switching over to medical marijuana to treat my anxiety disorder and other pain in joints. I believe there is a problem when you can’t get the real drug, and have to take the drugs which you don’t know what it will do to your mind in the longrun, in fact with the recent suicide warnings from the FDA you kinda gotten wonder what’s up with Prozac and all of it’s cousins….is there a real problem with anti-depressents?
I’ve had no problem personally, but then again the drugs do change your brain chemistry when you take it over time. It sounds pretty unatural to me, but I still must take it because it helps and it’s easier and cheaper than marijuana which should not be. I’d rather use marijuana to treat my anxiety disorder.