Albert Haynesworth Wants A Trade

According to Jason Reid's Redskins Insider blog over at The Washington Post website, Redskins defensive end--and unwilling nose tackle--Albert Haynesworth is planning to skip this weekend's mandatory minicamp. And to top it off, he also wants a trade.

I say: make the trade. This game of cat-and-mouse has been going on for a few months now, and as far as I'm concerned, that's a few months too long. The Redskins should have traded the disgruntled DE a long time ago. I'd be willing to gaurantee that no one in the DC area will miss him. Really what is there to miss?

Yeah, I know he didn't have that terrible of a 2009 season statistically. Even missing 4 games, Haynesworth still finished with 37 tackles, 4 sacks, and 5 passes defensed (and those 5 passes defensed set a career high for Big Al). Look, it's not his statistical performance that's the problem. Honestly, what soured me on Haynesworth is the fact that the man misrepresented himself to the Redskins organization and all but made off with $41 million in gauranteed salary.

Don't believe me? Well, here's a clipping from Haynesworth's original presser that introduced him to the D.C. sports scene: "...I [didn't want] all of y'all to remember Albert Haynesworth as the player that kicked somebody in the head--or be remembered as a player that turned around, took his punches, did what he did, and stepped up and became a great player."

Just how did Haynesworth step up and become a great player? Before he was even finished with his first Redskins season, he criticized his coaches and adopted a general temperament of unhappiness with the way he was utilized in Greg Blache's defensive scheme. But he didn't just gripe and criticize privately; he took it to the media. Now, I understand being unhappy and disagreeing with your utilization in any given system, but seriously, airing your dirty laundry in front of the national media instead of settling the matter with your coaches hardly endears you to...well, anyone really.

But Haynesworth's complaints didn't end when Blache was dismissed during the Redskins post-2009 coaching and front office shake-up. After Washington hired Mike Shanahan, the Super Bowl-winning coach picked respected coordinator Jim Haslett to implement a new defense based on a 3-4 scheme, one that would include Big Al as an important feature. Said Haslett of Haynesworth: “I think he’s such a good athlete. I told him this the other day, ‘Don’t worry about what position you’re playing, you could play the nose, you could play end, you could play linebacker.’"  But Haynesworth didn't like that one bit. He assumed that this new scheme would require him to be a permanent nose tackle whose only responsibility was to eat up running lanes and collapse the pocket. Having none of that, Haynesworth opted to skip the Redskins offseason workouts. Boo, hoo.

At this point, the Redskins would be doing themselves a huge favor if they traded Haynesworth. Jim Haslett's new defense needs a versatile nose tackle (the fact that the Redskins have been collecting defensive lineman like crazy this offseason proves it). But what the team doesn't need is a disgruntled player that could spoil the locker room with his diva attitude. Sorry, Albert, the Redskins don't play for you. You play for the Redskins (and probably not for much longer). This franchise should take what they can get for Haynesworth and move on.