Dear Dan: Less is more.

Defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth has agreed to a 7-year, $100 million deal with the Redskins.  That bears repeating: 7 years, $100 MILLION.  

If you can’t already tell, I’m not exactly thrilled about this.  It isn’t that I don’t think Haynesworth is a good player — it’s so much more than that.  

First of all, he’s replacing the much cheaper, and better-tempered Marcus Washington, who was released earlier this week.  There’s a lot to be said for locker room dynamics, and Washington had been with the team a long time.  He was a fan-favorite, and teammates spoke highly of his leadership and attitude.  Marcus may have been injured from time to time, but he made up for it when he was playing.  I’m not sure how Haynesworth is off the field, and on the field he’s obviously one of the league’s best defensive tackles, but he was also once suspended for raking his cleats over another player’s face.  

Second, Dan Snyder is an idiot.  There, I said it: idiot.  He is notorious for overspending for players who don’t end up making an impact, and the thing is, their shortcomings have more to do with him than with themselves, and that’s because Snyder overspends where it’s needed less.  The Redskins’ issues last season had much more to do with how they lost games than how they defended them; you don’t win unless you score more points, and while defenses are obviously helpful in winning, without any effective offense, you will lose.  And the Redskins had a pathetic offense last year.  Haynesworth was successful in Tennessee because they prevented offenses from scoring AND also scored points.  Defense may win championships, but it sure does help if you can score a touchdown once in a while.  Just ask the Browns.  

During the Reskins’ most recent “good” season (in my opinion), ’05-’06, the star players weren’t even really stars at all, and they certainly didn’t cost $100 each.  I’m not even sure they cost that put together.  They were an aging but experienced quarterback named Mark Brunell, a tiny but speedy wide receiver named Santana Moss, and a punishing safety named Sean Taylor.  The lone exception was running back Clinton Portis, the current face of the franchise.  This was smack in the middle of an era when Snyder seemed to be interested in making good trades by getting rid of players who didn’t want to play in Washington, and picking up talent that did: Lauverneus Coles going to NY for Moss and Champ Bailey going to Denver for Portis are just a few examples, along with acquiring Taylor from The U in the first round of the draft.   Of course, I’m leaving out the part about how Joe Gibbs was the coach at the time, and most likely had a good influence over Snyder.  Presently, we aren’t as lucky, as Jim Zorn was decidedly underwhelming in his freshman effort last year.  

A quote from this article states: “As [the Haynesworth deal] got put together, you could see my eyes get big,” Redskins head coach Jim Zorn said, “and (owner) Dan (Snyder) said, ‘don’t jinx it, don’t jinx it’, so we had to act medium through the whole process, but it was very exciting.

Maybe Zorn’s eyes were so big because he couldn’t believe the team owner was blowing such a huge wad of cash on one guy who can’t possibly fix what’s really wrong with the team. 

These days, Snyder seems more interested in becoming the next Al Davis.  A few more years, a lot less hair, a tasteless leather jacket, and the firing of a few more coaches, and the transition will be complete.  Maybe they’ll make a film about it and Snyder’s friend Tom Cruise can play him in the movie.  

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Snyder to fail — I want my team to be as successful as they can be — I just don’t think this is the way to do it.  

I sure hope I’m wrong.

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