Albert Haynesworth never saw eye to eye with Mike Shanahan during their time together in Washington. Haynesworth predicts that a day is coming when Robert Griffin III will clash with Shanahan, too.
Asked on Tennessee Sports Radio to give his side of the story after being ripped by former teammate Chris Cooley, Haynesworth said the real problem in Washington was that he played with a dysfunctional franchise. And Haynesworth believes that just as he clashed with Shanahan, and just as Donovan McNabb couldn’t make it work with Shanahan, some day Griffin will also learn that Shanahan isn’t a coach that players can trust.
“I mean, it’s like, you can’t win with that team,” Haynesworth said, via Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post. “And you think it was just me? I mean, look how he did Donovan. See what’s going on with RGIII. I met RGIII. He seemed like an extremely nice guy that’s willing to work. Now he’s gonna learn – I mean, I hate to say he’s gonna learn — about Shanahan, how he’s conniving and everything like that, where he’s not gonna help him out, it’s all about him.”
As so many others have, Haynesworth blamed Shanahan for keeping a hobbling Griffin on the field in last season’s playoff loss to the Seahawks.
“They’re gonna run RGIII into the ground,” Haynesworth said. “They almost really hampered his career last year with the knee injury, putting him back in there. I mean, I think they ought to cut ties, let it go. . . . I don’t think it’s gonna work out. They’re always gonna try to blame RGIII for something. It’s never gonna be the head coach’s fault.”
Haynesworth called signing with Washington “the worst mistake in my life” and said he would have rather become a Hall of Fame player who made slightly less money than the “free agent bust” he’s generally viewed as. So we know one thing that Haynesworth and Shanahan would agree about: Everyone would be better off if Haynesworth had never gone to Washington.