Media Hammers Haynesworth, but Brown Is the Real Story

By Todd L. Frank  |   Thursday, June 24, 2010  |  Comments( 1 )

Washington Redskins
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This column is not about Albert Haynesworth. But I’ll start with him just to get him out of the way (as the Redskins should soon).

Walk around Redskins Park, or click around the web, and you’ll find countless diatribes about how selfish and unprofessional he is. Plenty of sentiment about how for the money he’s made, he should do anything the coaches ask and play wherever they put him on the field no matter the defensive scheme. I agree.

Of course the pendulum is starting to swing back the other way has ESPN.com’s Patrick Hruby and the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins have found ways to defend Haynesworth to varying degrees. The basic idea that Dan Snyder gifting Fat Albert with a front-loaded bonus-heavy contract deserves some blame is something I can agree with. But Haynesworth should still be showing up for work.

But one reason this column is not about Albert Haynesworth is that, hopefully for Redskins fans, he’ll be out of Washington sometime soon. The other reason is that the bigger news (though perhaps not as splashy and juicy for the mainstream media) is on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

After doing the right thing by drafting a blue-chip offensive tackle with the 4th overall draft pick, the Redskins have now acquired former Pro Bowl OT Jammal Brown from the New Orleans Saints.

Brown, 29, is a former 1st round pick and 2-time Pro Bowler who’s still in his prime. So he can step right in at LT while rookie Trent Williams can man the right side until he’s ready to dominate at LT. Or, since Williams has taken all the offseason snaps at LT, Brown provides an all-pro bookend at RT, allowing Artis Hicks to move to guard.

No matter how they line up, this offensive line has undergone significant upgrades in just a few months. It was obviously the team’s most pressing need and it appears to be sufficiently addressed. And oh by the way, the Redskins have also gone from Zorn-Campbell to Shanahan-McNabb.

So let Haynesworth stew and kick and scream and demand a trade, and let the media obsess on it and hold him up as the latest poster boy for The Selfish Rich Athlete. But the Redskins just made a major move right under their noses. And only gave up a conditional pick for this proven offensive lineman: depending on McNabb’s performance and the resulting compensation to the Eagles, the Saints will receive either a 3rd or 4th round pick and also send a conditional late-round pick back to Washington.

For once the Redskins are on good side of a deal. Don’t believe me? Well don’t listen to the fans in Washington drunk on the burgundy kool-aid. Check out these quotes from several Saints fans about losing a player who actually missed their Super Bowl season due to injury:

“They won big, congrats to their front office. … Flame away, but the Jammal Brown compensation was flat out horrible. … Wash totality owned NO in this one. ... They got a PRO BOWL LT for a 4th round pick. ... It is sickening how ridiculously we got taken to the woodshed on this deal. … We definitely got robbed. ... I'm not too hot on this deal. … This is disappointing, for sure. … We got hosed on this deal. I know that he wanted to be traded, but the compensation was awful. A third or fourth round pick for a Pro-Bowl LT?”
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