Junto Boys

BREAKING NEWS: RICKY WILLIAMS SMOKED POT

The Dolphins are 2-11 this season. Williams, 27, stunned his team by retiring shortly before Miami opened training camp in July.

"I didn't know ahead of time or I would have given them a clue," he said.

Williams said a third failed drug test made him retire because he was "scared to death" that people would find out he smoked marijuana.

"The thing I had the most trouble with was that after you fail your third test, then it becomes public knowledge," said Williams in the interview, parts of which will also be shown on CBS' Sunday pregame show "The NFL Today." "That's one thing I couldn't deal with at the time -- people knowing that I smoke marijuana. That was my biggest fear in my whole entire life."

The Dolphins filed a lawsuit in federal court against the running back, seeking the $8.6 million an arbitrator ruled he owes the team for breaching his contract. Williams is fighting the decision.

He gave up the $5 million he would have earned this season, which would have been his sixth in the NFL. He is now enrolled in a 17-month course at the California College of Ayurveda in Grass Valley, Calif., studying holistic medicine.

"To a lot of people, I look very foolish in what I am doing and I understand that," Williams said. "(It doesn't bother me) because the only thing that matters is how I feel, and if I let what they feel affect me, then it changes how I feel."

Yo Ricky, is there anyone who did NOT know you were smoking marijuana?

The only thing that matters is how he feels, right now, at this moment. Which is why he has been smoking pot every day since ever. And why he bailed on his teammates without thinking it through. And why he decided he'd play again, then not. The deplorable conditions of his luxury apartment in New Orleans during his time with the Saints were legendary. He didn't feel like cleaning up the pizza boxes and chicken bones. Some day he may feel like another $20m would have done him more good than another bag of weed, and what will he do that day to feel better? Correct: more weed.

He has a textbook substance abuse problem. Staying in the NFL meant "outing" and mandatory enrollment in a substance abuse program. That is why he quit, suddenly and illogically, but it made perfect sense in the parallel universe of the addict. He needs help and is determined not to get it.