Washington Redskins’ S100 Million Mistake: Albert Haynesworth
Dan Snyder: here we go… again?
I hate to rain on the Washington Redskins March Championship Parade. I’m sure there are a lot of Redskins fans that are ecstatic about the signing of Albert Haynesworth. He was the biggest name on the market, and the Redskins made the first splash in free agency.
There are going to be people touting them as a NFC East division contender this year and dark horse for the Super Bowl. I think this move also shows why Dan Snyder is one of the worst owners in sports.
Putting together a NFL roster is not a fantasy football draft. It is about assembling parts that will help the team win.
Teams like the New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, and Philadelphia Eagles get that. Teams like the Washington Redskins do not.
Dan Snyder has already committed to two huge defensive contracts.
Haynesworth signed a seven-year $100 million dollar contract. DeAngelo Hall re-signed with the Redskins for an estimated $55 million with roughly $23 million guaranteed.
The Washington Redskins allowed the fourth fewest yards in the NFL in 2008. They were sixth in points allowed at 18.5. Their pass defense ranked seventh in the NFL. Their rush defense ranked eighth in the NFL.
Opposing quarterbacks managed only a 75.6 QB rating against them in 2008. Only six other teams were better. Credit that to a pass defense that only allowed 56.8 percent of their passes to be completed. That was tied for sixth in the NFL.
The Redskins did have some deficiencies on defense. They didn’t put pressure on the quarterback. Their 24 sacks ranked 28th in the NFL. As a result, they only picked off 13 passes, which was tied for 17th in the NFL.
Haynesworth has the potential to help in both areas. He will draw double teams in the middle, making it easier for defensive ends to get to the quarterback. More pressure on the quarterback is going to mean more picks.
I am not saying that Haynesworth will not improve the defense. He is arguably the best defensive tackle in the NFL. This move has the potential to cement the Redskins as a top-five defense in the NFL.
The problem is that they were a top-10 defense last year for $150 million cheaper and went 8-8 in the regular season. Making things worst they started the season 6-2. They only had two wins in the second half of the season, and one of those was a three-point win over the 4-12 Seahawks.
The Redskins only gave up 18.8 points per game in that 2-6 slide. That was in line with the 18.5 points they allowed on the season, even when they were winning.
Their problems were on offense.
The Redskins scored just 12.5 points per game in the final eight games of the season. In five of those games, they scored 10 points or less, and in six of the eight games, they scored 13 points or less.
The Steelers led the NFL in points allowed with 13.9 points per game. Are the Redskins going to hold everyone to 10 points per game?
Do these two moves make them better than the 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers on defense?
I don’t think so. They would need to play at the level of the 1976 Steelers defense to make a run at the ring with the offense that showed up the last eight games of 2008.
Again, the problem with the Redskins was offense last year. The 16.6 points per game they scored ranked 28th in the NFL. The 189.1 yards per game they tallied were 23rd in the NFL. The only strength the team had was in the running game.
Clinton Portis led a rushing attack that tallied 130.9 yards per game, which ranked sixth in the NFL. That is where they needed to spend their dollars. Bringing in more skill position players to give Jason Campbell a chance to be successful. Adding better balance to the passing game.
Here’s the bigger problem. Clinton Portis will be 28-years old by opening day. He already has 2,052 carries in his NFL career. That’s 29th in NFL history. Compare that to Shaun Alexander who has just 135 more career carries or Jamal Lewis who has just 347 more carries. Chances are that Portis has one, maybe two more good years left.
Furthermore, Portis led the NFL in carries with 325 in 2007 and was third with 342 last year. This isn’t a guy that has been splitting a lot of time the last few years. He has been the featured guy in Washington most of his career there.
When the Redskins were flying high at 6-2 Portis led the league with 944 yards rushing in the first eight games, including five 100-yard games.
In the last eight games he had only 543 yards rushing and only one game over 100 yards rushing. Without them, they have nothing on offense.
No offense to Santana Moss or Chris Cooley. They are fine players. But they can’t carry an offense. With what they have on their roster if Portis isn’t running well this team bogs down. Defenses aren’t going to force turnovers when the opposing offense doesn’t have to worry about taking risks knowing that the Redskins can’t score on offense.
The Redskins may be gambling that the NFL will not resolve its labor crisis and will be playing with an uncapped year in 2010. That is possible.
The Redskins may own every Pro Bowl player by 2010. It’s also possible the NFL resolves the issue before then. If they do, the Redskins will have invested $150 million on one side of the ball with an estimated $66 million guaranteed.
These signings are going to cripple their salary cap space and cause the same problems that got them into the mess that Joe Gibbs had to fix five years ago.
In a couple of years, they will be looking for a new running back, because Clinton Portis will be broken down and be thirty-years old. Unless Jason Campbell develops into Kurt Warner next year and the receivers they have drafted turn into Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce, there are going to be problems passing the football.
Jason Campbell has 25 touchdown passes in 29 starts over the last two years. He hasn’t shown to date that he is an explosive quarterback. He’s a game manager that needs a potent running game.
Unless they start making major improvements to the offensive side of the ball, this offense has the potential to be even worse than they were in 2008. Think 2006 Oakland Raiders bad. All right, maybe not that bad, but close.
If you are going to pay a free agent $100 million dollars, you hope it results in a Super Bowl appearance. I’m not even sure the Redskins are the best team in their division with this move, much less a Super Bowl contender. They are a Clinton Portis injury away from being irrelevant, a real possibility at his age.
Albert Haynesworth was going to command $100 million on the open market. Haynesworth was fielding offers from up to six teams according to ESPN’s John Clayton. The Redskins didn’t overpay for his services.
This kind of move makes sense for the Denver Broncos; a young explosive offense that needs some beef in the middle of their defense.
It makes sense for the Green Bay Packers with a young offense that needs someone in the middle to anchor their defensive line.
It makes sense for the New York Giants who have a very talented offense and could have established themselves as the premier defense in the NFL.
It doesn’t really make sense for the Washington Redskins given their offensive situation. It improves a weakness of sacking the quarterback and should lead to more interceptions. It makes their defense better. It isn’t going to improve an offense that killed them the last eight games of the season. The affect it will have on their overall record is minimal.
The other concern is Haynesworth. Haynesworth has never started 16 games in a NFL season. He missed four starts in 2007. He missed two starts last year. When he is healthy and motivated, he is arguably the best defensive lineman in the NFL. He hasn’t shown he can be that guy for 16 games. Is that the type of player you want to give $41 million to in guaranteed salary?
For the teams I listed above it would make sense, because they have nothing to lose. The Broncos and Packers need a major defensive overhaul and may be their ticket to the Super Bowl.
For the Redskins it’s a big gamble to upgrade a side of the ball that was their strength. How motivated will he be playing with a .500 team that has an offense that is deficient and can’t score points?
Dan Snyder showed why the Redskins have won exactly two playoff games since he arrived. He is willing to spend money at all costs without looking at how it affects the direction of the team.
He builds a NFL roster more like a fantasy team than a NFL team. His money is no object approach makes for big headlines and creates fan excitement about the product in March. They are constantly offseason paper champions. That approach doesn’t give them a parade in February.
Unlike some of the past signings he made this has the potential to work, because Haynesworth is not an aging veteran past his prime like Bruce Smith or Deion Sanders. Haynesworth will be 28 years old and headed for the prime of his career. Haynesworth could be productive for the entire life of the contract. If he produces like he did in Tennessee, the Redskins will be a better football team.
If the Redskins can also land T.J. Houshmandzadeh they may be able to upgrade the weak side of their ball. His initial interest was in the Seahawks, Vikings, Eagles, or Giants. It is unclear whether this signing and a lot of dollars could sway him to move to Washington.
They may also be able to trade for Chad Johnson or Aquan Boldin. They also may have hit a homerun with Devin Thomas or Malcolm Kelly. Those guys need time to develop. It’s difficult to grade a free agency period until you see the entire product in the fall. We won’t ultimately know how this will work for another six months.
We can let recent history be our judge and to me this appears to be business as usual in Washington. Make a big splash in free agency and hope that it will bring about new results. It has not worked for them to date.
The definition of insanity is doing the exact same things and expecting different results. We will soon see if Dan Snyder is insane or if he has laid the foundation for the next Super Bowl contender.
Unless they are able to grab a big play receiver and upgrade their offense, my guess is another 8-8 to 10-6 season that leaves them either on the outside of the playoffs looking in or exiting in the wild card round.
That isn’t the excitement that Washington Redskins fans are hoping for now that they have landed the No. 1 free agent on the market.
By Derek Lofland at NFL Football Maniaxs
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