Heading north of the border?
Ricky Williams close to deal to play for CFL's Argos
Posted: Thursday May 18, 2006 11:17AM; Updated: Thursday May 18, 2006 1:38PM
Ricky Williams could join the CFL's Toronto Argonauts as soon as next week.
Ricky Williams is about to make a run for the border, and we're not talking about the border that will soon be patrolled by National Guardsmen.
According to a source, sometime soon, possibly as early as today, the Miami Dolphins will grant the suspended halfback permission to play for the CFL's Toronto Argonauts, who open training camp on Sunday -- which happens to be Williams's 29th birthday.
The last sticking point on the Dolphins' end is a written assurance from the Argonauts that they'll release Williams from his obligation to the team when the season ends in November. In other words, as one person familiar with the negotiations put it on Wednesday, a declaration that Williams is being rented, not purchased.
The Argonauts are likely to agree to the Dolphins' terms, and though Miami coach
Nick Saban remains resistant to the idea -- he's worried that Williams will get hurt in Canada, which might make Saban and the Dolphins look like fools -- he'll probably give the bushy-bearded runner his blessing. Then, assuming a face-to-face meeting between Williams and his new bosses doesn't go miserably, it will be up to Williams' agent,
Leigh Steinberg, to hammer out a one-season deal with the team.
At the very latest, look for Williams to be a member of the Argonauts by early next week. That means Williams will leave the friendly confines of Grass Valley, Calif., where he's holing up with his holistically correct buddies, and relocate to a cosmopolitan city with terrific entertainment and culture offerings.
And why, you ask, is Williams, one of my favorite people in football because of his individualism, so eager to go international?
Come to think of it, why is Saban letting him go in the first place?
The answer to both questions is the same: Williams needs the dough.
Because of his drug suspensions and sudden retirement before the 2004 season, according to a source familiar with Williams' finances, the running back has made just $285,000 since December 2003 -- with his next potential check from the Dolphins delayed until at least next summer. Throw in the absurd $8.6 million judgment against him in the wake of his short-lived retirement (the Dolphins kindly reduced his debt to $5.4 million after his impressive '05 campaign) and a history of sloppy financial decisions, and Williams might as well be mooching meals from
Mike Tyson. Or maybe
Evander Holyfield is a more apt comparison -- Williams has three children with three different mothers.
Williams won't make all that much in Canada: Probably less than $200,000, with the potential for some substantial off-field income worked into the deal. But at least this will get him some cash. And if you look at the painful history of his time as a professional, you'll realize that few athletes have ever squandered more potential cash.
To get a clear picture of Williams' financial woes, you have to go back to the first contract he signed, after New Orleans traded its entire 1999 draft to snag the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. Williams' first mistake was signing with rapper
Master P, who dispatched a strange, voluble man named
Leland Hardy to negotiate his first NFL deal.
Hardy, as intended, made a splash; the contract was indeed revolutionary. Loaded with exceptionally difficult to meet incentives, it meant that Williams, unless he performed instantly like the second coming of
Jim Brown, would be vastly underpaid.
To his credit, Williams saw the contract as a badge of honor. Unlike those entitled rookies who came into the league with huge base salaries they hadn't yet proven they deserved, Williams would
earn his money the old-fashioned way. The man is sincere like that, one of his many redeeming qualities, but the situation predictably deteriorated: Williams, playing for a struggling franchise, failed to become a dominant force, partly because of injuries. He switched agents, asked for a new deal and, after coach
Mike Ditka was fired and the Saints drafted
Deuce McAllister, he asked for and received a trade to the Dolphins.
Again, before he played a game for the Dolphins in 2002, Williams agreed to an unconventionally structured contract: He'd start with a relatively low base salary and a hefty incentive package which, if met, would roll over to the following year's base salary, a process that would repeat over the life of the five-year deal. That meant that Williams, after leading the NFL in rushing with 1,853 yards in 2002, got $2.1 million in incentives, which bumped his '03 base to $2.6 million. In '03 he earned another $1.1 million in incentives, which upped his '04 base to $3.7 million.
The downside of structuring a deal this way was that the team insisted on including language in his contract similar to that of a typical signing bonus, a clause which specified that if the player failed to report or retired prematurely, the team could recover some of the money it had already spent. This is what an arbitrator used as the basis for the $8.6 million ruling against Williams, later upheld by a federal judge. Laughably, the ruling included money the player had received from the
Saints.
Before the 2004 season Williams again asked for a restructured deal -- but he didn't like what the Dolphins were offering. He also had issues with coach
Dave Wannstedt, who had failed to impress Williams with his hiring of
Chris Foerster as the team's new offensive coordinator. Williams feared he'd be used unimaginatively and incessantly on an offense that lacked a quality quarterback and big-play weapons and which had a shaky offensive line. He sensed a constant beating and he wasn't up for it.
Oh, and he tested positive for marijuana, meaning he was facing a four-game suspension.
That, and he was sick of hanging around with football players.
You know the rest -- Williams walked away, enraged his teammates, began traveling the globe, enrolled in a school to become versed in
ayurveda, an Indian healing discipline, and flaunted his free-spirited freedom. It was wild and it was cool, but it wasn't the most thought-out decision.
When one of Williams's attorneys,
David Cornwell, brokered a deal with the NFL that would have allowed the running back to serve his four-game suspension in '04 and return anew in '05, Williams said no dice. The Dolphins, who had gone after the $8.6 million as a means of pressuring Williams into returning, went through with the proceedings. When the unfavorable decision came down, Williams was out of legitimate financial options.
So Williams, playing for the league minimum of $540,000 (another result of the arbitrator's decision), sat out the first four games of '05 and lost eight game checks as a result of two failed drug tests. Despite the layoff, despite being thinner than he had been before his retirement, despite the presence of No. 2 overall pick
Ronnie Brown, Williams still had an impressive season, rushing for 743 yards, including 280 in Miami's final two games.
Had Williams not tested positive for an undisclosed substance (reportedly not marijuana) after the season, he'd likely have been able to secure a new contract from Miami heading into 2006, with a forgiving of the remaining $5.4 million debt as part of the deal.
Instead, he's looking longingly toward Toronto as a means of paying his bills, and it will likely take another impressive and controversy-free return in 2007 for Miami, or any other NFL team, to consider offering Williams any real cash.
When I hung out with Williams in Nevada City, Calif., in the fall of 2004, he told me that money had no meaning to him, that he would simply learn ayurveda and roam the land healing people, who in turn would house and feed him to display their gratitude. It was a noble image and I like to think he's a person capable of finding happiness without getting caught up in material concerns.
At the moment, however, I can't get past the cold, hard numbers: Had Williams merely stayed with Miami in 2004 and played out the final three years of his contract while meeting a level of incentives similar to what he had in '02 and '03, he'd have made about $20 million -- and, of course, avoided the $8.6 million hit from the arbitrator.
I'm not sure how many Canadian dollars that would come to, but I have a feeling that Williams, had he played his cards differently, could have joined the Argonauts in a different capacity: Owner.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/michael_silver/05/18/open.mike/index.html
