Dolphins Didn't want Ricky?

Commentary: Dolphins bosses didn't want Ricky anyway

By Greg Stoda

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, May 11, 2007

The Dolphins have no comment.

Oh, sure, they do.

They're done with Ricky Williams, and have been done with him for quite some time. That's their comment, and they've been saying it by saying next to nothing about Williams whenever his name has been mentioned in recent months.

The Dolphins don't need to comment officially now that Williams yet again has failed them and himself by failing another drug test. They've been distancing themselves from Williams, who tested positive for marijuana last month, ever since Cam Cameron became their new head coach.

"He hasn't been reinstated," Cameron recently said when Williams was introduced as a topic of discussion. "You serve the organization, you serve yourself, best when you deal with things you can control."

Williams has demonstrated time and again an inability to control himself. He's unreliable, and reliability is a byword with Cameron.

Oh, hey, Cameron could have seen his way clear to use Williams in trade for whatever low-round draft choice some sucker bidder might have been willing to give him. In fact, such a scenario still could play out with Williams eligible for reinstatement come September.

Never, though, was Williams going to wear a Miami uniform with Cameron in charge. Nick Saban, he isn't.

You remember Saban, who always said it was "easy" to stand up for Williams, who constantly seems to end up making his enablers look foolish. Which, after all, is how those sad relationships frequently work out.

Williams was a terrific running back for the Dolphins in 2002 and 2003, when he rushed for a combined 3,225 yards after being acquired in trade from New Orleans. (Current Dolphins General Manager Randy Mueller signed off on the deal from the Saints' side, by the way.) Williams then sat out the 2004 season when he quit on the Dolphins in what turned out to be a fake retirement.

This was Mueller, writing for ESPN.com, on Williams at the time: " ... It's exactly this type of out-of-the-blue thinking that factored into our decision to trade him ... with Ricky, you just never knew what was coming next."

Nevertheless, Saban — upon taking the Miami coaching job before the 2005 season — offered Williams safe haven. Williams accepted the offer to return to the NFL, and sat out the first four games of the season while serving a penalty for what at the time was his third violation of the NFL's substance-abuse policy.

This was Mueller — before being hired by the Dolphins in June 2005 — on Miami's reacceptance of Williams:

" ...(We) had seen enough of Ricky on and off the field to know we could not put all our eggs into that basket."

Williams, though, was a Miami asset in 2005 by rushing for 743 yards and easing then-rookie running back Ronnie Brown's offensive burden.

But then came another Williams suspension for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy, and he was absent for the 2006 season.

Never did Mueller have Saban's ear as he now has Cameron's. That makes a significant difference when it comes to matters regarding Williams, who recently told ESPN: "I don't concern myself so much with earning trust."

Williams comes with a warning label, and always has. It's just that the Dolphins are paying attention to it these days. Anyone who trusts Williams at this stage of the madness is asking for the kind of trouble his kind of dependancy typically generates.

The only sure thing about Williams is that he's sure to turn into a disruptive figure. He suffers from social anxiety disorder, but the disorder becomes contagious. He owes the Dolphins a load of money they'll likely never get, but the franchise need not compound the financial loss by exposing itself to more of the psychological, emotional and strategic risks Williams poses.

Williams could, and probably will, market himself as a rejuvenated running back with low mileage the past three seasons. He played for Toronto in the Canadian Football League last year, carried 109 times for 526 yards and missed two months with a broken arm. He'll be 30 years old in little more than a week, and Miami is thin at running back behind Brown.

But the Dolphins don't need the aggravation that is Williams.

That's their comment.