The Nfl

Running in Place
Ricky Williams must get healthy, then get more work, to help the Saints

The biggest shame of the first month of Ricky Williams's NFL career is that the Saints have reduced their supposed franchise savior to the level of Ray Zellars, Mario Bates and Derek Brown, marginal players who have carried the mail since the last time this woebegone team made the playoffs, in 1992. Williams has put up the kind of numbers—257 yards, 3.6-yard average, no touchdowns—that got his predecessors run out of town, but his statistics tell only part of the story.

The New Orleans offensive coaching staff has to answer for the way it has used the former Heisman Trophy winner, who had an all too typical day in a 20-17 loss to the Falcons on Sunday at the Superdome. With first-and-goal at the one late in the first quarter, the Saints opted against sending the 238-pound Williams up the middle for the final yard. Instead they pitched the ball to him running right; three speedy defenders beat the plodding New Orleans line to the corner and nailed Williams for a four-yard loss. What followed was an incomplete pass, a completed pass that lost five more yards and a missed 28-yard field goal. "I was surprised," Williams said. "I thought we'd go up the gut."

Williams wasn't even in the game for most third-down plays; the Saints think backup Lamar Smith is a better receiver. Williams was also on the bench while New Orleans, which took possession with 42 seconds to play, tried futilely to get into position for a tying field goal.

Granted, Williams has been playing with a hyperextended right elbow and a left ankle that's sprained in two places. But he is playing, or rather making himself available. "In an age when athletes are looking to get out of the game when they're the least bit hurt," Saints coach Mike Ditka said last Saturday, "it's refreshing to find a guy who will play in some intense pain." On Sunday, Williams came out of the game four times because of elbow pain, and in the middle of one grimacing examination by a team medic, he rose from the bench and put himself back in the game.

But the Saints have to make a decision: Sit Williams until he's healthy or start pounding him into the line 30 to 35 times a game—what they envisioned doing when they traded a king's ransom for the opportunity to draft him last April.

Williams was drafted to be a workhorse, but offensive coordinator Danny Abramowicz, who calls the plays (with Ditka exercising occasional veto power), seems intent on using Williams as a decoy, if that. On 14 of the Saints' last 15 plays of the first half, and on the final eight plays of the game, Williams either didn't touch the ball or wasn't even on the field.

Ditka was livid about some of the play-calling in the 14-10 loss at Chicago on Oct 3, arguing with Abramowicz on the sideline so much that the coordinator moved upstairs to the coaches' booth on Sunday. But no matter who calls the plays, Ditka has to make the message clear to his quarterbacks that he wants Williams to get the ball. With first-and-10 at the Atlanta 41 and about three minutes to play on Sunday, the Saints called Williams's number. However, when he got to the line, Billy Joe Tolliver thought he saw too many Falcons in the box to run the play, audibled to a pass, fumbled the snap and lost 10 yards. The drive fizzled.

"I don't care if there are 10 in the box," Ditka snapped afterward. "We're trying to run the ball down there with Ricky. Call the running play! Put it in his hands!" Of course, Ditka can change the plays he doesn't like, such as the sweep on first-and-goal from the one. "You're right," Ditka said. "We should have run it right at 'em."

So the Saints-Williams honeymoon has not yet started. In fact, despite holding fourth-quarter leads in each of their first four games, New Orleans is only 1-3. "No way I want to take a game off now," said Williams, who carried 19 times for 53 yards against Atlanta. "I'm a little banged up, but the team needs me. The only way I wouldn't play is if I couldn't move."