By: Stephen Patterson
Washington Redskins' nose tackle Albert Haynesworth was unable to take his third conditioning test earlier today due to swelling in his left knee. Since reporting to camp on Wednesday, after skipping the teams' previous camps and training sessions, Haynesworth has been unable to make it out onto the field to practice due to being out of shape in the eyes of new head coach Mike Shanahan.
Shanahan decided Haynesworth needed to complete the conditioning test since he hasn't attended any of the teams workouts while he protested the teams switch to a 3-4 defense. In his previous two attempts at the test, Haynesworth has been unable to finish the required 300 yard sprints in an acceptable time. He is the only player on the Redskins roster to take the test, as everyone else has participated in the previous training camps.
On his first attempt on Thursday, Haynesworth completed the first two sprints, but according to Shanahan, he took too much time to rest in between the sprints. This led Shanahan to ask him to do a third sprint, which he couldn't complete in an acceptable amount of time. Haynesworth said he had never been able to do three sprints of that distance in his entire career, even during his best seasons, which led Shanahan to reportedly tell the defensive lineman he had never been in shape.Haynesworth was much closer in his second attempt yesterday, and came only a single second short of the designated time of 70 seconds. While most coaches would probably allow a player to pass the test over such a small difference in time, Shanahan apparently has a zero tolerance policy in place when it comes to dealing with Haynesworth. It's hard to blame him after the way the Pro-Bowl tackle has treated the team so far this offseason.
When you are a $100 million player and supposedly one of the faces of a franchise, you have certain responsibilities to your teammates and the team that gave you that money. If you are unhappy with some of the decisions being made, discuss it with the coaching staff or management. There's no need to publicly demand a trade after one season with the team because you are unwilling to learn a new scheme.
By sitting out from mandatory workouts and training sessions, Haynesworth has only hurt himself and made the transition even harder.While he had claimed to be staying in shape on his own during his time away from the team, it has become apparent that he hasn't kept his word. After accepting a $21 million bonus from the team in April, Haynesworth had no grounds to miss any of the teams activities. Even if he wanted to be moved to a new team, he should have been with the team on and off the field.
As a resident of Tennessee and moderate fan of the Titans, I'm happy the team let him walk away last summer and refused to give him the massive deal he was seeking. While there is no denying Haynesworth is one of the premier defensive linemen in the league when motivated, he is too much of a distraction to the team and doesn't have the decision making capability to be truly successful. If he can't understand why it's looked down upon to miss time over petty matters when making the amount of money he does, and why teammates are angered when their much higher-paid teammate is chilling on the sidelines, he obviously doesn't know what it takes to live up to the potential he has with his size and speed.
