It seems that the NFL's most well-paid defensive lineman finds playing defensive lineman to be an unreasonable job requirement and wants to be traded—even though his stupidly gargantuan contract makes that impossible.
Albert Haynesworth—who has already collected $32 million from the Washington Redskins despite not yet completing a full season of games—is not a fan of Mike Shanahan's approach to coaching. He is reportedly upset that the two-time Super Bowl winning coach is switching from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4 defense, which will require Haynesworth to line up three feet further to the right than he is comfortable with. So he naturally decided to skip every offseason activity that the team has held, including the one mandatory event this week, and now his agent says this "is not an organization that Albert would have ever been attracted to just a short year ago - regardless of the money."
Yet, he did take all that money. Haynesworth apparently feels betrayed by the defensive switch (even though he wasn't too happy with the last one either) but for $41 million guaranteed, wouldn't most folks learn to live with it? Maybe Redskins fans feel betrayed by his four sacks in 2009. When some of them are being sued by his own team for failure to pay their bills, maybe now is not the time to be taking a principled stand about the philosophy of nose tackles. He's not some second-year player looking to secure his future in a uncertain world. His future was secured last summer when he met Dan Snyder. Now how about giving him some of what he paid for?
On the other hand, if it's obvious that he will be a gigantic pain in the arse for the rest of 2010, why not cut your loses and let him go? Well, they already tried that. And no one wanted him. The time for that was draft day and it didn't happen, because who wants a fat, disgruntled lineman that doesn't really like being on the line?
Everyone seems to agree that Haynesworth is the bad guy here and he will get zero sympathy from Skins fans, other players or shrimp boat captains. Albert even had the nerve to say that his "number one goal has always been to help my team win — period." Provided that doesn't interfere with the Number Two goal: Helping Albert Haynesworth's stats. The higher the number, the more important the goal, right?
Oh, and P.S. He nearly blinded a player on the field and almost killed a guy with his car. Just in case you forgot.