Heisman Trophy Winners: Top 20 NFL careers of all time
Ricky Williams will forever be known as one of the strangest, most interesting football players to grace the sport with his presence. Williams played his college ball for the Texas Longhorns from 1995-98, improving on already-impressive rushing marks each season.
As a freshman in 1995, he finished with over 1,000 yards, setting the bar high for his following three seasons. He went on to run for 6,592 yards and 75 touchdowns over his career with Texas, winning the Heisman Trophy in 1998. After taking home the hardware, Williams was selected with the fifth-overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft to the New Orleans Saints and head coach Mike Ditka. He started 12 games during his rookie season, rushing for 884 yards and two touchdowns.
Williams’ career would only take off from there as he rushed for over 1,000 yards in his next four seasons, even being named to his only Pro Bowl in 2002 when he had over 1,800 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns.
The next few years after the 2003 season is when his career gets a bit cloudy. With the Miami Dolphins at this point, Williams failed a second drug test — testing positive for marijuana — and he was set to be suspended for the first four games of the 2004 season. He then announced he would be retiring from the NFL just days before training camp was set to start.
The retirement came as a shock since he was still in his prime, but he stuck with the decision and spent the entire year basically living in the woods and studying drugs.
Sketchy as it might have been, he claimed it was the best decision for him before returning in 2005 and living out his four-game suspension and coming back to rush for 743 yards and six touchdowns. He then failed yet another drug test and was suspended for the entire 2006 season.
Williams was never quite the same after that, although he did have one more 1,000-yard rushing season in him during the 2009 campaign. He finished his career with 10,009 rushing yards, 74 total touchdowns and finishing 29th all-time in NFL rushing yards.
Next: 12. Doak Walker, SMU