Albert Haynesworth: Criminal or Victim?

Kicking another man in the head when he's vulnerable is unacceptable. Kicking a man in the head during a football game when he's not wearing a helmet, and you're wearing cleats is unforgivable. Yet this is just what Albert Haynesworth did last Sunday during the Cowboys, Titans game. After a goal line play, cameras caught Haynesworth ripping the helmet off of Cowboys Offensive Lineman Andre Gurode, followed by two kicks to the head by the 300 lb. plus defensive tackle, Albert Haynesworth. It was the most heinous act of violence I have ever witnessed through 20 plus years of watching football. There are multiple scuffles every game of the season, some more violent than others, yet not once has someone treated another player's safety as mercilessly and carelessly as Haynesworth. Albert Haynesworth was suspended a total of five games for this appalling act Many players, former and current have declared five games to be too lenient a punishment for such a terrible crime.

While five games is the longest suspension in the history of the NFL, I don't believe it will solve anything. This is not to say Haynesworth doesn't deserve it. I agree he needs to be punished where it hurts the most, in his bank account, but to me the real problem will never be resolved.

It's obvious to me that anger is usually the overriding emotion during a football game. Anyone has spent a decent amount of time around the sport can tell you, "A scared player is a hurt player." Having been the assistant coach for a Pop Warner team three years ago taught me some invaluable life lessons. Specifically I learned that angry players make good players. To some I may seem to be overstating the point, yet when the topic is examined it is clearly the truth. "You can't play the game scared." How many times have you heard this phrase uttered during a football telecast? Almost every time a wide receiver seemingly drops a pass intentionally; most announcers use this cliché to describe the situation. There is nothing inherently wrong with this statement; it's as harmless as an NFL kicker. Though when the alternatives to playing the game scared are examined, it's apparent there aren't many other choices.

One of the alternatives to playing scared is to play confident. Confidence creates success real or imagined. A confident quarterback will complete more passes than an unconfident quarterback, due to the fact that he will use the entire field, and exhaust al. Of course confidence isn't always enough, you also need talent. Talent many times will mask your weaknesses, and when you combine talent with confidence you've got a winning formula. Of course when a player doesn't have confidence and talent, he must compensate through other means.

Anger. Anger is an emotion that can make the most mild-mannered individual become an entirely different person. Anger can cause physical confrontation, which is necessary in a game such as football. Hence an otherwise calm player can be transformed into a better football player, simply by making him angry.

The problem I see with the NFL is that they continually misdiagnose anger, as passion. You rarely hear NFL analysts and front office NFL execs use the word anger. Normally, you will hear this: "Ray Lewis is such a passionate player." I have never heard, "Ray Lewis plays this game with great anger." Yet Ray himself has talked about his anger on the field. Intensity is another word people use to describe players such as Ray Lewis. Intensity, passion, and anger. All these words mean look the same on the field.

"This is our house," can be heard from every home team playing a football game. How would you react if someone came in your house uninvited? To an average human being, fear would be the normal reaction. Seeing how there is no room on a football field for such an emotion, anger, passion, or intensity is the only substitute. You must protect your house by any means necessary.

How does this all tie into the Albert Haynesworth situation? Anger is the common theme. Albert Haynesworth has a temper. Ask his coaches and teammates, past and present, they all have an Albert anger story to tell.

Albert Haynesworth's five game suspension will cost him close to a million dollars when it's all said and done. But will his suspension solve his underlying anger management issues? Obviously not. When Haynesworth returns to action in Week 10, he will be the same man, minus about a million dollars. If the NFL really wants to stop players like Haynesworth from taking outlandish actions against fellow players they need to address the problem.

Albert Haynesworth needs mandatory anger management classes, so that in the future he will hopefully refrain from physically assaulting opponents. From there I think it should be mandatory for all rookies to take a course on anger management during the rookie symposium, in order to help assure players leave the anger on the field. I'm sure many people think this is a stupid idea, and if you asked me my opinion a week ago I would've agreed, but that was before I witnessed a man so out of control of his emotions that he assaulted another man with a deadly weapon in front of millions of witnesses. It's easy to be completely dismissive and place all the blame on Haynesworth, it's much harder to intelligently discuss an unspoken problem with America's most profitable and popular sport. If you read this and you're shaking your head in disagreement, ask yourself these two questions: How many occupations in America would condone this sort of behavior? How beneficial is anger to any other job you can think of?