Ricky Williams ran for 743 yards and six touchdowns last season. Bob Rosato/SI

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 Williams' 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 that, 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 the deal this way was that the team insisted on including language in his contract similar to that of a typical signing bonus, a clause that 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 that had a shaky offensive line. He sensed a constant beating, and he wasn't up for it.