Media pariah Albert Haynesworth doesn't like the spotlight. He'd rather just "go to Wal-Mart and hang out," than have to deal with it. Still, he keeps on making that impossible.
In a Saturday interview with 106.7 The Fan, the maligned and injured defensive tackle added to his litany of brilliant quotes.
This was probably his best work:
"I guess, in this world, we don't have a lot of people with backbones.
Just because somebody pays you money don't mean they'll make you do
whatever they want. I mean, that means everything is for sale. I mean,
I'm not for sale… Yeah, I signed the contract and
got paid a lot of money, but just because, that don't mean I'm for sale
or a slave or whatever."
Haynesworth, of course, is upset that his $100 million dollar contract is forcing him to play in the 3-4 defense preferred by new coach Mike Shanahan, even though he originally signed on to play in the 4-3.
He is, though, happy that the team is moving back towards his preferred scheme.
"We agreed upon coming to that [contract] that I'd play defensive tackle and not nose guard and all that other stuff. I was signing with a 4-3 team," he continued. "It was a lot of promises and stuff like that. But now, it's been better, dealing with [defensive coordinator Jim] Haslett, and we run a lot of 4-3 stuff and you'll see that [Sunday]."
He and Shanahan too may be on their way to patching up disagreements. Things "went down with me and Mike," but "A lot of it wasn't as bad as what they made it seem like in the papers… we had good conversations," Haynesworth said. "Everything's been fine."
Haynesworth, who underwhelmed in 2009, said that he was never really in shape under Jim Zorn's conditioning program, but after his offseason workouts, he felt a lot better.
He, of course, failed his pre-camp conditioning test 10 times in the wake of his offseason workouts.
Haynesworth will likely miss Sunday's game with a sprained ankle.
