Dan Snyder Gets What Dan Snyder Wants

The Redskins inked defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth to a seven-year, $100 million contract early this morning. This shouldn’t come as much of a shock seeing as a) we’re talking about Dan Snyder here; b) we had fair warning that the Skins were poised to make this move. But still, this is 100 milly in the NFL, where contracts of this size aren’t pocket change, as they are in the baseball.↵↵The knee-jerk reaction to this move is what you’d expect: This is just Dan Snyder overpaying for another veteran player, instead of building through the draft. The Skins are just trying to win the offseason championship ... again. But this deal is different than some of their past mistakes, at least on paper. This isn’t like the Brandon Lloyd debacle, when they traded picks, then overpaid, for an unproven receiver who was ultimately a massive bust in D.C. Or like when they landed Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith, two players with huge name recognition, but not much left in the tank.↵

↵↵Haynesworth is 27, in his prime, and currently the best defensive tackle in the league. And perhaps the best lineman, period, in the NFL. Sure, plenty could happen that will make us look back on this as a bad deal. But this morning, it seems like a quality signing, and one that immediately takes the Redskins defensive line from a liability to an asset.↵

↵↵As for the issue of whether or not they overpaid, I can’t say for certain. I suppose time will tell. But if Vinny Cerrato, who’s essentially the team’s GM, is to be believed (which he probably isn’t), the team got a discount. On ESPN radio in D.C. this morning he said, “[Another team] offered more money than we did.”↵Oh, and the spending spree didn’t start and end with Haynesworth. They also signed mid-season acquisition DeAngelo Hall to a six-year, $55 million deal. Hall was the Skins best corner towards the end of last season, but that deal seems more risky than the Haynesworth signing. That’s a lotta loot for a guy with an extremely checkered past. ↵

↵↵Stay tuned. Next in line might be ex-Redskins offensive lineman Derrick Dockery.↵

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