Haynesworth is Behaving Selfishly

Ya know - work is annoying. I am listening to Sirius NFL network, Adam Scheffter comes on, I hear the whole interview, and as soon as he is asked about the AH situation, a guy walks in from the plant with a question and the phone rings with order confirmations. So I miss the AH questions completely. Aaaargh.

I'll say that if I ran the Redskins, I wouldn't have been in on the Haynesworth sweepstakes at all. I wasn't against his signing, and I actually think we got a pretty good contract, all things considered, but we didn't have a need there, and signing a 28 year old DT is ultimately counterproductive towards the goal of cultivating young talent. The last thing this team needs is to be reliant on a $50 million player approaching 30 who is piling up quite the injury history.

Of course, film shows that he's utterly unblockable against the run, and has rare pass rushing skills to boot, so it's not like there's a defensive coach in the league that can't find a spot on a defense for Haynesworth. You just can't build around him.

Disagree (emphatically). If Albert wants to be the best in history at DT, as he says, he'll play at a high level for another 5 or 6 years at least; therefor being one of if not the most dominant defensive players in the game. That's plenty to build around. In fact good common sense might suggest having a player like Albert on your roster (already) is like a gift from the Almighty.

That Allen/Shanny/Haslett decided to take the defense in a completely different direction...that's the real issue, not Albert. Maybe their plan works out. But history, one might say, is not on their side. Shanny has always struggled to keep his defensive unit on track, and Haslett has struggled to build up his defense. I hope they get it right this time...

That Allen/Shanny/Haslett decided to take the defense in a completely different direction...that's the real issue, not Albert. Maybe their plan works out. But history, one might say, is not on their side. Shanny has always struggled to keep his defensive unit on track, and Haslett has struggled to build up his defense. I hope they get it right this time...

Sadly, this gets lost on all the overhype and AH hating. To me personally, switching to the 3-4 created more needs on defense, to a team that already had a ton of needs on offense, some needs on defense, and did not have many resources in the draft. While I'm not going to make the argument that the previous defense we had was a good one, I think things would have been easier if we stayed in the 4-3.

Defensive Ends: Orakpo at full time DE, Andre Carter (who had a very good season last year), an up and coming Jarmon, and good depth with Daniels, Wilson, and Alexander would have been great in the 4-3. Instead, with the 3-4 a lot of these guys are being switched to LBs to learn a new position, we are putting Carter to a position where he wasn't too successful in the past, and counting old 3-4 DEs like Daniels and Holliday. And the best guy that would fit as a 3-4 DE is being considered more as a NT. Orakpo is the only one that wins out of this bunch.

Defensive Tackles: We wouldn't be dealing with this Haynesworth mess right now, and we could have brought other DTs to replace Griffin. Instead with the 3-4 we opened a huge need in the NT, and want to waste a dominant, upfield pass rusher with the cumbersome job of a NT. Oh and his back up is a guy coming off a pretty bad injury, and a whole bunch journeymen.

LBs: This was probably the greatest area of need in our old defense, and would have been a need this season in a 4-3 defense. But at least we would have had a MLB in Fletch, and Rocky as a OLB (and we could have picked up our other OLB in the draft and/or free safety). On our 3-4 defense, we have a whole bunch of converted DEs as OLBs, Fletch may be too small to play ILB, and we are counting on a rookie to possibly be our other ILB. And we have yet to bring in any LBs with 3-4 experience. As I've said before, the only winner here is Orakpo.

Free Safety: A need on either defense that I feel the FO is not even thinking about.

So there you have it. I wish Shanahan had left the defense alone, improve it with players, but keep it the way it is. Now I feel we go into the season with question marks in both sides of the ball. I know there has been good change in the way this team is run, but I just don't see the need to make such a huge change in defense. Someone said in the past that Shanahan will make a bonehead move every now and then (i.e. Clarett) and I feel this may be his.

As any good fan, I truly hope the defense works out, but my gut feeling tells me that is going to be a tough year in that side of the ball.

My biggest concern with the defense is switching Lorenzo Alexander to Jeremy Jarmon to LB (and Andre Carter), those could pan out but it's a bit of a risk at this point

Was listening to Raven's radio last night and they had a bunch of guys out of OTA's Ray Lewis included. Jim H. was like wish they were here but he was going to move forward with who he had there. It made me feel like AH not being here is really not that big of a deal.

I agree and how that starts is stop airing the private businesses of the team in the media. The Redskins really need to take a page form the Patriots operations by keeping all personal team information out of the media. The old practice of a coaches sending his players messages in the press about their play or other team related things is old and outdated. It has to stop. You get better results and the respect from the players if you talk about it with them in private, behind closed doors. Stop trying to humiliate them in the press. That is disrespectful.

How have the Redskins handled this wrong publicly??

Other than "we're disappointed he's not here", what has anyone from the organization said that would be humilating or disrespectful to AH??

I'm really at a loss in regard to your take.

My biggest concern with the defense is switching Lorenzo Alexander to Jeremy Jarmon to LB (and Andre Carter), those could pan out but it's a bit of a risk at this point

I think Jarmon was a steal for us, I hope he's used to the best of his ability. I'd hate to see his talent and our good fortune wasted. Hopefully he takes well to his new position, which could very well happen, or the coaches adjust and find a way to get the most out of his talent.

How have the Redskins handled this wrong publicly??

Other than "we're disappointed he's not here", what has anyone from the organization said that would be humilating or disrespectful to AH??

I'm really at a loss in regard to your take.

That is the problem. Tell the player directly you are disappointed in him but don't do it through the press. It is not professional. The Redskins and certain other teams should not air the dirty laundry in the press. What exactly to do you gain by telling the press? Makes the coach look good? Look at the new tough guy coach....he is so great.
Let the employee/employer information get out on its own. Don't get on a press stage and podium and state it to the entire world. Employees will respond better to that kind of respect and treatment. This applies to the players as well, they should not be going to the press to complain about internal team issues. Keep it in house.

"Dirty Laundry"? I find the truth more revealing than conjecture. There was no he said, she said. It was to the point. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!

"We've got a good coach and all that stuff. Whatever they ask me to do, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna be a distraction or anything. I'm just gonna do what they ask me to do." - AH


Enough said!

That is the problem. Tell the player directly you are disappointed in him but don't do it through the press. It is not professional. The Redskins and certain other teams should not air the dirty laundry in the press. What exactly to do you gain by telling the press? Makes the coach look good? Look at the new tough guy coach....he is so great.
Let the employee/employer information get out on its own. Don't get on a press stage and podium and state it to the entire world. Employees will respond better to that kind of respect and treatment. This applies to the players as well, they should not be going to the press to complain about internal team issues. Keep it in house.

I'm just not seeing where you're coming from. Their public statements have been kept to a minimum and I really don't see how they've embarrassed or humiliated AH at all by saying they're disappointed he's not there. If you ask me they could have handled this A LOT worse.

Anytime Allen or Shanhan are asked about it, they give a pretty generic response. He's not here, we wish he was, but we've had good talks with him, he'll be here for the mandatory stuff, etc.

I would be willing to bet the discussions behind closed doors haven't been as good natured.