Give me a break. This writer is excusing drug addiction, and making everybody feel bad who doesn't also excuse it! Ricky was more interested in smoking pot than anything else, and that is surely the definition of an addiction. Ricky Williams did not leave football because he "got religion". He didn't leave to "find himself" or because football wasn't "fun". He left because he found dope -- or more precisely, because the NFL found out he had found dope!
Giving up a career, especially a career that pays so well, isn't something people do lightly, so a non-addicted person would have started thinking about it sometime between December and May, don't ya think? How 'bout Ricky telling the Fishies he was thinkin' maybe he might retire before the draft? Before June 1 cuts? Before all the decent RBs -- and there were several floating about for a while last summer -- found new teams? No, Ricky waited until he found out he'd be facing a 4 game suspension before he bolted -- and he only came back when he found out he had to pay back money he'd literally sent "up in smoke".
If this was your kid, and he was working a "regular" job making maybe $15-$20 an hour, and he decided to chuck it all and go live in a tent in Australia so he could smoke dope all day long, would you be so forgiving, particularly if you had laid down a chunk of money for his college education and co-signed a loan so he could get a fancy new car? I think not.
One last point: it's also very cavalier for this writer to chastise fans for being angry with Ricky. It's not just the team that's invested money in Ricky. It's also the fans who buy tickets and merchandise and travel to cities to see their teams. You can tell this guy gets free press passes and writes off travel expenses to whatever games he attends!
