The Aging Process

At the Kona Grill in Scottsdale, over mojitos and dragon rolls -- cooked eel and avocado atop a rectangular prism of rice with crunchy shrimp tempura inside -- Springs cannot escape the subtle messages he feels the Redskins have sent him. There also are questions that remain a mystery: Why didn't he have surgery following the 2005 season, when he suffered from a sports hernia? Why did he play -- or why did the Redskins allow him to play -- in the first preseason game last season against Cincinnati, when days before he had undergone an MRI exam on his groin?

"These types of injuries don't go away," Ron Springs said. "Shawn missed it. The Redskins missed it. Now they have to deal."

According to Redskins Director of Medicine Bubba Tyer, the team saw no reason to consider surgery. Springs had played in the Redskins' 20-10 loss to Seattle in the NFC semifinals and had not missed any of his offseason benchmarks. The injury did not flare up again until a week before the Cincinnati game.

When he did return two and a half months later, he said he felt like the old Shawn Springs. Like many of the frontline Redskins defensive players, Springs believes in Williams and does not think Williams's defensive schemes or approach were the primary reason for what became a Redskins collapse last season. Springs is part of the camp that thinks the Redskins simply were not talented enough.

"My dad used to tell me if you want to see where you fit, take your team against any other team and look at them position-by-position," Springs said. "Which starters on your team would you replace with theirs and vice versa? That's how you know if you're measuring up. If they've got more talent than you, then you have to ball out: hit harder, be tougher, make more plays and get turnovers. We didn't do that."

Springs talks and time taps him on the shoulder. The last time his team won its final game was the 1997 Rose Bowl, a 20-17 Ohio State win over Arizona State. He looks at the Redskins and sees opportunities sprinting past, and his mood darkens.

"Sometimes I get so depressed talking about the Redskins," Springs said. "You know, during the season, when I talk to guys who are going to be free agents, you know how they talk about the Redskins? They talk about getting paid. I want to win. I want to win football games. That's why I don't have a problem with Gregg [Williams]. Gregg wants to win football games.

"Hell, let's talk about something else."

Springs snared a wedge of eel on a soft bed of rice and changed the subject.

* * *

Ron Springs, who learned he had diabetes shortly after he retired at age 34, had his right foot amputated, followed by three toes on his left foot. His former Dallas Cowboys teammate, Everson Walls, donated a kidney to Springs earlier this year. The transplant has Springs saying he feels like "a car with a new battery."

He was in New York last month because leading diabetes foundations were so taken by his ordeal and his subsequent candor that they asked him to explain, virtually naked in front of the world, how he did not care for his body and how he is paying a high price.

His son calls the consortium the Dream Team, the powerful group of diabetes experts -- the National Kidney Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind, the Amputee Coalition of America, Mended Hearts and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists -- that saw his father on television after the kidney surgery.

"We've learned a lot over this," Springs said. "You know how difficult it would be for someone who is used to being so strong to come out and do this? Most football players, most guys, period, would crawl into a shell. They wouldn't want anyone to see them like that. My dad is a really strong guy."

Springs was disappointed when the NFL Players Association took a hard stance against providing more money to former players like his father. That made the call from the diabetes foundations all the more urgent. Issues such as pensions and disability coverage, things that don't matter when you're young and powerful with 4.5 percent body fat, suddenly are real to Springs.

This is the reason why Springs doesn't accept pay cuts, because a half-million dollars in medical bills with no safety net could one day stare him in the face, too. These are considerations more important than the color of any uniform, he says.

"Look at the guy in Washington, Willie Wood," Springs said. "Hall of Famer, Green Bay Packers, gave his life to the game. What's he doing? He's on assisted living in D.C. That's why you have to take care of these things. That's why you don't forget it's a business. That's my father they could be talking about. My dad is 50. Everybody my father's age is dying. That's why we're trying to do something. I'm not going to let that stuff happen to him."