1. Before we get onto Albert Haynesworth – yes, there’s more – let’s get to some injury news first. RB Ryan Torain practiced – Mike Shanahan said it was full participation, but the injury report said he was limited. Still, they expect him to play vs. Tampa Bay (they play another game Sunday, remember?). LT Trent Williams (shoulder) practiced and should be fine.
2. More injuries: CB Carlos Rogers and SS LaRon Landry did not practice, but they did participate in the walk-through. Landry sounded a little more optimistic than Rogers about playing Sunday. But we’ll see.
3. Rogers said his contract situation won’t play a factor in when he returns. He’s a free agent after the season. “You think about that, but if I’m hurt I’m not going to perform,” Rogers said. “Some guys are like, ‘I have to get back because I need to get more stuff on film.’ I’m like, I can only get back when I’m healthy, period, whether my contract is up or not.”
4. And now… Haynesworth. Because, really, there’s still a lot to discuss. So here we go.
5. Coach Mike Shanahan said he did not consult with owner Dan Snyder about the Haynesworth suspension. But there’s no way Snyder would not have been updated about this sort of move. Maybe Shanahan wasn’t informing him, but it’s likely that Bruce Allen was talking to Snyder. If a move like this were made without Snyder’s knowledge, there would be trouble. And I wouldn’t blame him, either.
6. By the way, Shanahan was – and this is the word of the day – giddy today. Can’t remember seeing him as loose as he was during and after practice. Like a 350-pound weight was lifted off his shoulders.
7. Shanahan said they waited until now because they finally determined it wasn’t going to work. “You keep on working, try to make it work, try to get the best out of somebody, you keep on pushing, guys get in better shape,” Shanahan said. “All a sudden push comes to shove and it keeps on dragging on especially when someone is adamant about a couple situations you say, ‘Hey enough’s enough and you go on.”
8. Of course, the timing is convenient. According to the CBA, a player can’t be suspended by a team without pay for more than four games. And there are four games left in the season.
9. According to one NFL GM who has seen Haynesworth’s contract, if the Redskins had waived him and he went unclaimed, they would be on the hook for his 2011 salary. So that’s another reason they waited until now and simply suspended him.
10. More Shanahan: “When he first came in … he didn’t like the 4-3 defense a year ago, didn’t like the base defense, didn’t like the nickel defense. He didn’t want to play nose tackle or defensive end. We got him playing the nickel package, first and second and third down. He didn’t like first and second down nickel. He wanted to play nickel in passing situations. It was just time to go in another direction. I’ve never been quite through a situation like this before and we did it in the best interest of our team. Now we go on.”
11. This had no chance of working from the start. Haynesworth never wanted to play in a 3-4 and wasn’t going to make it work. He never changed or bought into what Shanahan was doing. In the end, the Redskins wasted a lot of time on trying to get him to buy into this defense. Haynesworth buys into Haynesworth. The players know that too.
12. If they try to trade him in the offseason, as expected, one GM said he thinks the best Washington could do is a fourth-round pick. At this point, I think the Redskins would say one word to that: Sold.
13. Vonnie Holliday said it was in the game plan this past weekend that Haynesworth would play more in the base defense on first and second down. It’s not as if he hadn’t played in it before; it’s happened a couple times. One player said there were times Haynesworth balked at what coaches wanted him to do during games and that he was not always attentive in meetings. Some games he was engaged; other games he was not. That about sums up his career.
14. Not that the players needed it, but this is a reminder of who’s in charge. However, for all that happened with this, Shanahan did not win by a knockout by any means.
15. The players are relieved that this is over, not because they didn’t like Haynesworth but because they’re tired of the topic. Lorenzo Alexander said he’s been answering questions since March. Trust me, we’re all tired of this topic. Can’t tell you how many extra hours most reporters out here have worked on this topic, from offseason workouts to the conditioning test to even this week.
16. More from Rogers: “Albert probably don’t care. They gave him 41 million, he probably don’t care. I don’t think he’s missing 800 thousand.” True words indeed.
17. And more from Rogers about the defense: “Being 32nd, that’s disappointing and it’s nothing to do with him.”
18. Finally, Lorenzo Alexander was like everyone else: He wondered how good the defense would have been had Haynesworth accepted his role. Because they changed to a 3-4 and have players in spots they probably shouldn’t be, perhaps they would have struggled regardless of Haynesworth’s role. But, “we definitely would have been a more dominant defense. When you have a player out there that’s balling. Albert can play anything he wants to on the D-line when he gets down and does it. But, yeah, we probably would have been better. It would have been great to have him out there doing it. But that wasn’t the fact so we had to deal with what we had.”
