As a resident of Northern Virginia and a longtime Tennessee Titans supporter, I have been insanely entertained by the off-season "saga" involving perennial Pro Bowl defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth and new Redskins Head Coach Mike Shanahan. Haynesworth has been labeled a fraud, a pariah, and a fatass by the Washington media and Redskins fans who are friends of mine for his failure to attend mandatory OTA's over the summer after receiving a $21 million roster bonus in April. This is all rather confusing to a Tennessee supporter who watched Haynesworth be the best defensive player in the entire NFL the two seasons prior to his arrival in the DMV. Now he can't even pass a shuttle run test at training camp and will not be allowed to practice until he does, which is overshadowing everything else happening at camp. While this is a shame, in the long run, this is only a symbol of the Redskins' problem, not the problem itself.
As a Titans fan, I knew that losing Haynesworth would prove to be detrimental to the success of their defense in 2009, and boy was it ever. According to pro-football-reference.com the 2008 Titans were ranked second in scoring defense at 14.6 per game, second in turnover differential at +14, and seventh in total defense. This squad managed to have the best record and scoring margin in the NFL, in spite of being 28th in passing offense. In other words, this team was defense first, running second, and passing never, a recipe that might have been effective in 1976, but hardly a traditional model of success over the past 15 years or so. In 2009, everything flipped, and the club started the season 0-6 before re-inserting Vince Young into the starting lineup and making Jeff Fisher look like the biggest idiot in the league for not doing it sooner. For the season, the Titans were 16th in scoring, roughly the same as they were in 2008. Without Haynesworth, the defense was 28th in scoring defense. 28th. Egads. No further analysis necessary.
What fueled the 2008 Titans' defensive attack was the ability to rush the passer with only the front four linemen, enabling aggressive play by the defensive backs and permitting the linebackers to cover short passes and defend the run. The defense was dominant in spite of being vanilla on a regular basis, as few blitzes were needed. As great as this defense was, only three members were invited to the Pro Bowl: Haynesworth, Cortland Finnegan, who emerged as an elite corner that season in spite of the fact that he is tiny and struggles with bigger receivers (such as Andre Johnson, who torches Finnegan and every other Titans defensive back twice a year), and Chris Hope, a strong safety who played well, but won't be confused with Ronnie Lott anytime soon. The defense had other notables, including longtime veteran standout linebacker Keith Bulluck, injury plagued but always intense defensive end Kyle Van Den Bosch, and free safety Michael Griffin, who got in the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement with seven interceptions. While this defense certainly had a lot of talent and depth, it was based on Haynesworth up front being effective. With him gone to Washington in 2009, the Titans couldn't stop a high school team and at one point lost 59-0 to the Patriots with largely the same group other than Haynesworth.
But in spite of all the greatness Haynesworth exhibited in 2007 and 2008, it was hard to justify the contract the Redskins gave him. There was no reason to pay a defensive lineman the kind of money Haynesworth received regardless of his ability or character. Haynesworth has Hall of Fame ability. I know this from having watched his two previous seasons prior to his coming to Washington in 2009. But the money the Redskins guaranteed Haynesworth could only be a good investment if he produced in the manner he produced in 2007 and 2008, years in which it could be strongly argued that the guy was the best defensive player in all of football, for the entire life of the deal. Haynesworth was age 26 at the start of the 2007 season, so the Redskins did sign him at the traditional athletic prime age of 28. Unfortunately, in football, the average career lasts a shade over 4 years, and it was clear to anyone that watched the Titans' 2008 romp through the AFC South (and their stomping of eventual Super Bowl winner Pittsburgh late in the season) that the probability of Haynesworth maintaining his outstanding form for any significant period of time wasn't great. Well, clear to anyone not working in the Redskins front office, anyway.
The Redskins have failed over the past ten years for three major reasons. One, they sign free agents to deals that are based on past performance, not forecasted future results. If Albert Haynesworth was a Pro Bowl player for the entire life of his contract, he still would be overpaid. There was no chance that Haynesworth would be able to live up to his part of the bargain. He isn't even the worst example of Snyder doing this, as at least he can still be an elite player and isn't in his thirties. The Redskins essentially paid Haynesworth for being a great Titan. Second, there is no continuity in terms of schemes or personnel, because the owner fires the front office every other season. Since Dan Snyder bought the team in 1999 the team has had seven coaches, including Steve Spurrier of my hometown, Johnson City, TN; and famed NASCAR owner Joe Gibbs (OK, that was uncalled for as he won three Super Bowls, but he'd been out of football 12 years when they hired him). There's no rhyme or reason to these hires or fires, it's all the whim of the owner. And franchises that operate on the whim of the owner rarely win anything, unless a trade involving Herschel Walker takes place that yields an insane number of draft picks (not likely anymore). Despite this ineptitude, the fanbase would rather blame a player, who came from and was a part of winning traditions at both the college and pro level, rather than ownership for creating this situation. And that brings us to the biggest major problem concerning the Redskins: the fanbase enjoys bitching about being bad, and would follow this club no matter what Snyder does. How else could a club be second in the NFL in revenues while going 4-12 last year? Snyder's making money hand over fist because no one is holding HIM accountable for running a proud franchise into the ground. When you have a cycle of enabling, you fail. The Wall Street Journal wrote last year that Washington fans were jumping ship. Clearly the author of that piece has never entered a bar in the DMV. This place is rabid for the Redskins, and that won't ever stop, no matter how long they are terrible.
Incredibly, in spite of Mike Shanahan refusing to let Haynesworth practice in training camp and learn the change to the 3-4 defense, I have a feeling Albert Haynesworth is about to show some people what he is capable of doing. What he does on the football field is command double teams and routinely beat them. In other words, he's done in a 4-3 exactly what a nose tackle does in a 3-4. Mike Shanahan has handled this situation as if he were Bear Bryant and could pull Haynesworth's scholarship on a whim at Alabama. When you hand a guy a check for $21 million, you empower him. When you hand him a check that large and at the same time say "oh, by the way, we know you've never played nose tackle in your life but that's what you're going to do for us, suck it up and come practice, we paid you and we own you", rather than sitting down with the man you've just empowered and explaining team goals, then you're asking for this situation. I'm not saying Haynesworth is right. I think he's handled this situation like a pompous, idiot athlete, and the damage to his life and career is real and permanent. But let's see what happens on the field before we draw and quarter a man who can't complete a shuttle run. As Allen Iverson once said, "we're talking about PRACTICE!"
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