In the NFL, Ricky Williams is known more for the shocking way in which he was drafted than his talents. The New Orleans Saints picked him up in 1999 after trading all of their picks to the Washington Redskins. Then-head coach Mike Ditka had that much faith in the former running back. But Saints fans will know how that ended up for the team.

Today, Williams seems to have made peace with his past.

“It’s gonna sound crazy, but I’m a professional astrologer,” Ricky Williams said on Jon Gruden’s Barstool Sports on June 4, 2026. “Yeah, that’s what it is. That’s what I do for a living. And it sounds crazy, but if you broke it down, what I do on a daily basis, it wouldn’t seem that foreign to you.

“After I retired, I started studying different stuff because I was curious about life. And I met this woman who started talking to me about astrology. Then we talked… we talked… it felt like a playbook for life. And that’s the way I approach it.”

If Ricky Williams was an unfamiliar name to you, here’s why his chapter in the league is an indelible part of its history.

Texas Longhorns fans of the late 90s know that Williams was an absolute star in college. In 1998, the former RB broke the career rushing yard record set by Tony Dorsett 22 years before. The day he broke the record, a game against the Texas A&M Aggies, he needed only 63 yards to go past Dorsett’s total.

Williams did so easily, and finished the game with a whopping 259 rushing yards.

Ditka was sold.

“Unless it’s one guy, I’m not interested in a running back in the first round,” he said during the NFL Owners’ meeting in 1999. “There’s only one guy for me – Ricky Williams. He can be awfully good. But he’s not going to fall to us.”

The Saints pulled it off regardless.  but the gamble went the wrong way for the Saints. Williams could rush for only 884 yards, and the team went 2-7 that year. Ditka was fired, and he never coached again.

Williams went on to have a better career at Miami, rushing for a total of 6,436 yards. He helped the Dolphins win the AFC East division title in 2008 with former running back Ronnie Brown. In the twilight of his career in 2009, he crossed the 1,000-yard mark for the fifth time. Williams left the Dolphins as the second-highest rusher in team history after Larry Csonka. He retired in 2011.

During the midst of his career, Williams attended the California College of Ayurveda to study the ancient Indian science of medicine. Since then, this arena of life became a big interest for the former RB.

After spending 16 years studying astrology and reading birth charts, Williams saw an opportunity to help people differently. In order to implement this vision, Ricky collaborated with his teacher in astrology, Steven Forrest. Williams and his wife are now co-creators of the LILA Astrology App, which aims to make astrology easy and accessible for everyone, particularly those just getting started in the field.

Even though Williams has turned over a new leaf, Mike Ditka still maintained that he made the right choice in drafting the former RB.

Mike Ditka has no complaints about gambling for Ricky Williams

Apart from the way he was drafted, the other most memorable incident from Williams’ stint at New Orleans was the ESPN cover he starred in with Ditka. Perhaps no other coach-player duo would think of the move: Williams and Ditka posed as bride and groom, respectively.

But the marriage broke down quickly, with the former coach being dismissed. Drafting Williams might have played a part in that decision, but Ditka has no complaints.

“Did we give up too much to get him? Maybe,” Ditka told The Palm Beach Post in 2010. “But if you want somebody, why not give it up? And the other reason we wanted him — I wanted him — was that they needed somebody to market in New Orleans and I thought he would be great.”

Before Washington, Ditka and the Saints had also approached the Cincinnati Bengals with the same trade. This was a plan the former coach was committed to for a long time. Perhaps if he’d known better, he might have come at this with a different strategy.