Yes.
When the Saints drafted Ricky, they thought they were just a great running back away from being a Super Bowl contender. When that didn't pan out, Ditka was fired. Jim Haslet came in and started getting rid of almost everyone Ditka brought in and Ricky Williams was the poster child for the Ditka era.
When the Dolphins aquired about obtaining Ricky, Mueller jump at the chance. He was probably surprised that we agreed to his offer of two 1st round draft picks and accepted before we could change our minds.
I'm no apologist for the Wanny/Spielman administration... but we did not offer two number 1's for Ricky Williams
flat out. RW had to rush for 1,500 in 2002 in order to trip the escalator that made the pick in 2003 a number one, as well.
In a sense, it was Wanny's "fault" that the second pick became a number one because he hamstrung our offense by betting the house on Fielder in the first place. Who could we have gotten if we still had our first rounder from 2003? A stud QB? An all-pro WR? We'll never know, because running Ricky into the ground was our best offensive option, and not having a decent backup didn't help matters any.
If Wanny had drafted a
good QB in 2000 like I was screaming for him to do on draft day he would have been hitting his stride by 2002-2003, if not before. With a balanced attack and a JJ's defense, Ricky might have been the guy to put us over the top instead of being our only chance to win a @#$% game, and hence, rack up 1853 yards in his debut year for us.
Ricky also shares the blame in why the trade looks so bad in hindsight.
Quitting in 2004 and his suspensions for 4 games in 2005 and all of 2006 cost us 36 games. Shame on us if you will, but the talent was there. His last year with the Saints netted him 1200 yards and he
appeared to be putting it all together. His teammates thought he was strange, but they had no questions about his toughness on the football field.
With all the love for Ricky on these boards right about now, it's safe to presume that most Dolphin fans think he would have done pretty well in those 36 games we were cheated out of. So even if you don't want to add "what could have been" yards to his total, he still had 5470 yards over his last two years with N.O. and first two with Miami. I see a back who was very much worth two number ones, if you have the makings of a solid team and feel he's the one player to push you over the crest of the hill. Barring, of course, serious injury or personal self destruction. We got the latter.
Having followed the daily scuttlebutt back and forth prior to the RW trade, I can tell you that Mueller didn't "jump at the chance" to fleece Miami out of two #1 picks. Those negotiations went on and on and on in painful fashion. Credit Mueller for smelling blood in the water and playing hardball with the much greener GM Spielman in negotiations, and the desperate Wanny lurking in the shadows pressuring Spielman to "git 'er done."
Bottom line: I blame the front office for having a crappy offense and an
almost adequate QB to push Ricky over the 1500 yard threshold his first year, and then I blame Ricky himself for the debacle of the 36 games from 2004-2006 when he wasn't even on the field. But without the benefit of hindsight, I would have made the trade, too. And crossed my fingers.
I don't really care if he plays for us again or not, but if he does and he produces maybe all the talk of us being swindled in the Ricky trade will finally die.
