Defensive Notes
Uh oh. Washington is installing a new 3-4 defense this season, and one player who's a little concerned about it is Albert Haynesworth. Haynesworth, of course, is in the second year of a $100-million deal he signed last offseason.
"I don't think I'm built to be a nose tackle, to be honest," says Haynesworth, as reported in The Washington Post. "Most of those guys are short, stubbier."
Haynesworth is correct; at 6-foot-6, he is taller than the league's better nose tackles. Dallas' Jay Ratliff and the Jets' Kris Jenkins are listed at 6-foot-4; New England's Vince Wilfork and Green Bay's Ryan Pickett are 6-foot-2. Pittsburgh's Casey Hampton is listed at 6-foot-1.
Haynesworth didn't do a lot of complaining; it sounds more like skepticism than anything else. He hopes he'll play at defensive end rather than tackle in the new defense, which is possible. Washington signed Maake Kemoeatu recently, who missed last season with a knee injury. Kemoeatu's experience is primarily as a 4-3 tackle (in Carolina the previous three years) but prior to that he played in Baltimore, which used some 3-4 fronts.
Haynesworth's salary looks even more out of whack if he's a 3-4 end (which isn't as important a position as nose tackle), but his stats won't necessarily suffer. In any case, it's definitely a situation to keep an eye on. Washington has had one of the league's odder defenses in recent years: top 10 in NFL terms, which ranks defenses by yardage allowed, in each of the last two seasons, but a bottom-4 fantasy group (in terms of recording sacks and turnovers) in those seasons.
--Andy Richardson
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