Shanahan – Haynesworth situation has gotten out of hand

The back-and-forth barbs between Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan and defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth has gotten out of hand to the point that Redskins QB Donovan McNabb couldn’t resist poking fun at the whole situation.

McNabb suffered a sprained ankle that will prevent him from playing in Washington’s preseason game against the Jets.

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When asked about the severity of his injury, McNabb used air quotes to answer reporter’s questions. Last Saturday, Haynesworth excessively used air quotes when asked about the reasons why he missed practice. He repeatedly air quoted the “headaches”.

McNabb said that his injury was just a “sprain” and “I want to make sure I do the ‘right things’ to get myself healthy”.

McNabb is known as a jokester in the locker room and continued to use air quotes to answer questions. It’s nice to see that there’s humor to be found from this whole drama.

Haynesworth infamously skipped the conditioning program Shanahan set up to ready the Redskins for training camp. Apparently, Haynesworth did not want to play in a 3-4 defensive formation. This is understood given that Haynesworth is most effective in the 4-3 defensive formation.

The defensive tackle was subjected to a conditioning test by Shanahan. Since then the relationship between the coach and player has soured. Haynesworth played in the first preseason game against the Jaguars but only in two series’. He was inserted with the second unit because Shanahan wants Haynesworth to earn his starting spot back despite already passing the conditioning test.

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In Washington’s second preseason game, Haynesworth continued to talk about how unfairly he was being untreated by Shanahan. He added that he wouldn’t participate in next year’s conditioning program. Shanahan had nothing to say about the comments of Haynesworth after the game at first but after he and Haynesworth met privately, Shanahan broke his silence.

“If you guys want to talk about football, we’ll talk about football,” Shanahan said. “But to keep on talking about things outside of football to me is completely ridiculous. I did have a conversation with him. If you want to talk about football, we’ll talk about football.”

Shanahan is right. These NFL dramas – Favre, Haynesworth – are taking away from the game. Can we just get back to football?