Can Arrington Come Home?

Lavar Arrington was cut today by the New York Giants. With the NFL season over it is the winter of rumor and baseless speculation. My contribution is not what the heck is going on in San Diego with the firing of Schotty, it is not how long Andy Reid will be gone taking care of his crackhead kids, no, my baseless speculation is where will Lavar go?

Is it possible that Lavar can come home to Washington? Probably not a snowball's chance in hades in reality, but the Redskins need a linebacker and a cheap one since our salary levels are the highest in the league. Lavar will certainly be cheap after three consecutive injury plagued seasons, you can bet on that. So that is the good news. However, there are two, rather obvious, problems:

1) Did Dan Snyder, Joe Gibbs and particularly Gregg Williams burn the bridge down then terra-form the land so that no bridge was ever there to speak of in the first place in their relationship with Lavar? Translated, will Lavar want to play for the team that drafted him in his adopted home city (he still lives in the area) with his history of clashes with all three of the men in charge of the team and will they want him on their team at all anyway? He pretty much hasn't forgiven the Redskins coaches at all for their benching and mud dragging they did of his name...can he forgive and forget? Can they?

2) Will Lavar ever really be healthy again? When healthy, Lavar is a head case, but a sensitive and generally happy one who can be productive and make the occasional spectacular play along with the occasional boneheaded one. When injured, he is a head case and a surly, unproductive one.

His last good statistical season was in 2003, also his last fully healthy one. In 2004 he was limited to 2 games due to injuries, was supposedly still hurt in 2005 while fighting with coaches over playing time due to a supposed "lack of knowledge" with the playbook , with staff over how injuries were handled and disclosed and the owner because of a missing 6.5 million in his contract, leaving him playing in 12 games and averaging about 2 less tackles (about 4 tackles/g) a game while playing. In 2006, he was on a new team, playing sparingly until he blew out his Achilles and was gone again.

Do the Redskins need him? Well, honestly, can he be any worse than the linebackers that they had last year? Warrick Holdman was marginally better than Lavar, averaging about 5 tackles a game, and Rocky McIntosh and Khary Campbell were non existent. You coulda put Lavar Burton out there and he probably could've done as well as those two stiffs.

So, we've established that Lavar is a bit of a headcase, he's a huge injury risk, he has not been productive since 2003, he is prone to mistakes when he is productive but can also make a spectacular play, and he hates the ownership that drafted him and coaching staff that got rid of him. Doesn't really look good for Lavar rejoining the team...except for one thing...

The fans of the Washington Redskins love Lavar Arrington! The area would love to have Lavar back, I know I would. Its not often that Washington DC accepts and welcomes an athlete into the city since most come here past their primes and/or only for a paycheck (see: Michael Jordan, Deion Sanders, etc.). I mean, it took three years for Agent Zero to be accepted and Clinton Portis had to dress up in costumes to get the respect he deserves here.

If bygones could be bygones and Lavar could accept a minimum contract that is full of incentives and if ownership would for ONCE listen to their fans, Lavar could come home and at worst be the personal punt protector like Adam Archuletta last year. Bring Lavar home i say!

I mean, his face still adorns the Easterns Motors commercial that broadcasts all over the Washington/Baltimore area for cryin' out loud! We need him back for this reason alone. I want more commercials like this!