This is quite a surprise.. I mean, wow.
Aside from being pissed that the league is losing such talent, it does seem like a nice decision on his end.
If he has invested (and not wasted) his earnings over the last five years, he can now life a good life from here on out. He got out before he got battered and bruised, and if he can pull it off, more power to him.
That being said, this really sucks for Dolphin fans, because he was the key component of their offense, and with him gone, major changes are likely going to be made.
Also, it's an interesting time to announce the retirement, with training camps starting up and all. I think it would have been nice for him to give some indication prior to the draft, so the his team could look for a future replacement, but maybe he didn't care about the team, or hadn't made his decision yet at the time.
It's a good move for him, but a very bad decision for football and his fans.
In regards to his salary, this is from ESPN's story:
Quote:
Williams was scheduled to make $3.735 million in a contract set to expire in 2006. But it's not the first time he has walked away from a fortune. With the Saints, he signed an unusual contract that paid him more than $10 million in signing bonus in 1999, but he was willing to accept minimum salaries for the remainder of the deal, hoping to make up the difference in incentives.
Financially, the deal was a disaster. The Saints challenged him to be the most productive back in NFL history to make those incentives. To hit the big dollars, Williams would have had to gain more than 6,400 yards in his first four seasons. Despite his productivity, Williams fell short of those numbers in five seasons.
...
This is also not the first time Williams skipped off to a foreign country on short notice. During one offseason in Miami, Williams went on a European vacation without informing Saints management. They were left scrambling to try to find him.
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The Dolphins might have been tipped off that this might be an unusual season for Williams when management learned through a newspaper story that Williams had failed a drug test and was being docked four games' pay this season.
In May, three South Florida newspapers reported that Williams tested positive for marijuana and faced a fine of at least $650,000 for violating the league's substance-abuse policy for a second time since joining the Dolphins.
But his attorney, Gary Ostrow, told The Associated Press: "As far as I'm concerned, there is no violation."
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Article can be found
HERE.