Former Redskins tight end Chris Cooley was on ESPN 980 with Steve Czaban and Al Gali when the trio got to talking about Gilbert Arenas‘ thoughts on his awful contract with the Washington Wizards.
“Every year, every team, someone signs a big contract and then they turn into a piece of dump,” Cooley said via DC Sports Bog.
Cooley was then asked about which contract he thought was worse — Arenas’ or Haynesworth’s.
“No question, the Haynesworth contract,” Cooley said. “Because he was trying to get released by the team. His goal was to come here, make a large signing bonus, and then get released and not have to do any of the work. He didn’t care about the back end of that contract, he didn’t care about making all of that money. His idea was, you paid me for what I did in the past, and my goal is to be released as soon as possible and basically take $33 million from you for absolutely nothing.”
Cooley went on to say that it was widely known among the team that Haynesworth’s intentions were to collect all the money he could, and that head coach Mike Shanahan likely turned a blind eye.
“That’s obvious when you’re around a player, that they’re not trying to play for your team…It doesn’t matter what you got [in exchange for Haynesworth]. They would have released him if they wouldn’t have got anything for him. It wasn’t about getting a pick out of him. It was about a terrible decision to bring in an awful human being into an organization that he’s not going to participate in.”
After the Redskins, Haynesworth’s next stop was in New England with the Patriots. He lasted four months before he was placed on waivers and picked up by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
