“He can do almost anything he wants. He doesn’t want to do anything. To me, that’s the issue. He’s one of those guys you walk in a meeting and you tell him, ‘Put down the phone.’ The next day you have to tell him to put down the phone. The next day, you tell him to put down the phone. You tell him, ‘Don’t read the newspaper in meetings.’ The next day you have to tell him the same thing. It doesn’t stick; it’s an everyday thing.”

— Redskins defensive coordinator Jim Haslett on Albert Haynesworth, June 2011

This was how we knew it would end with Albert Hayensworth. His inevitable Patriots demise was really just NFL Mad Libs, wasn't it? Haynesworth pissed off ___ , gave up against ___ or was arrested for ___ and released on ___ __ , ____.

Guys who have a history of laying down and quitting on a football field usually don’t change. Guys who stomp on the head of a helmetless player don’t change. Guys who battle with head coaches and coordinators in every stop do not turn into Tedy Bruschi 2.0. And that's just the on-field stuff when it comes to this loser. Pretty sure Corey Edmonson would love the opportunity to be able and play football in the NFL.

We've seen it with Corey Dillon and Randy Moss. Lousy character always reveals itself at some point, and once that happens there is no turning back.

But I'm guessing when it came to Albert Haynesworth the Patriots were thinking it might happen in three years, not three months.

Albert Haynesworth is a lost cause. Any chance he might once again be a productive and reliable NFL player is by almost every measure over. That ended on Sunday. Sure, he might sign on somewhere else, but we know the script now. He'll be somewhere for a few weeks, do something stupid and get shown the door. The final word on Haynesworth is and will always be this: He doesn't care. At all.

It doesn't matter if it's a 3-4 or 4-3 defense. It doesn't matter if his coach has zero, two or three Super Bowls (think about that -- he's quit on Jeff Fisher, Mike Shanahan and Bill Belichick. Not exactly David Shula, Rich Kotite and Rod Rust). This was never some misunderstood but ultimately redeemable figure. What we've seen is what we got. This is simply a classic case of a guy being handed $41 million in guaranteed money and deciding that he's done enough. A $41 million gold watch or rocking chair. Literally fat and happy.

That's why you would have been delusional to suddenly expect a switch to go off the second Haynesworth put on a Patriots uniform. I sure didn't -- the Haynesworth Experiment struck me as far more likely to be a failure than a success.

But I thought it was a deal worth making and I stand by it -- this was a two-time All-Pro in 2007 and 2008 and when he signed that $100 deal in 2009 was considered by most to be one of the two or three best defensive players in football (almost incomprehensible to think now, right?). Thirty years old, no real injuries with the Redskins. For a defense that was among the league's worst in 2010 it was absolutely worth a shot.

And upon his arrival Haynesworth said all the right things. We knew he would -- though we didn't really believe him, never came close to trusting his act -- and we expected to see, at least at times, the impact player we were told was coming. But it never really happened. Sure, there were moments in Miami and against the Cowboys, but the game-changer never showed up. All we ever heard about was Haynesworth's upside, his almost unparalleled talent. We never saw it. In reality, Kyle Love has had a better season and is right now a better player.

Before we blast Bill Belichick, let's give him this: He knows when to cut bait before things get nuclear. We saw it with Moss and Dillon. Some coaches would've allowed Haynesworth to stick around after this confrontation with Pepper Johnson. Not Belichick. He knows it's not going to get better -- and maybe more importantly he realizes that the Haynesworth he's seen on the field in 2011 isn't worth the trouble -- so why try and fix it?

Again, the Albert Hayensworth Era isn't a disaster. Trading two first-round picks for a quarterback who hasn't been a top 10 player at his position for five years? A disaster. Trading a fifth-round pick for a player with a 75 percent chance to be a wipeout but a 25 percent chance of being The Missing Piece? A calculated risk.

But if you're sniffing around for an indictment on Belichick about this, here it is: He had to make the trade. It wasn't arrogance, it was desperation. A cross your fingers and hope beyond hope kind of deal. In a perfect world he doesn't have to bring in a potential Level 5 distraction, a guy with three tons of on and off-field baggage. But Belichick put himself in that position with weak drafts and whiffs on free agents. They needed Haynesworth, there was a significant weakness at the position. And it wasn't fixed with Hayensworth, and nobody on the roster has developed as an answer, either. Belichick the GM deserves to take another hit for that.

The lack of leadership on defense is also a factor in all this. I'm not suggesting that Hayensworth would've won the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award if he had been traded to a team with veterans to match the cache of the 2004 Patriots, but maybe having to answer to Bruschi, Seymour, Law and Harrison would have bought the Patriots a year of good behavior. 

Guess what? There is no Patriots Way. No magic formula. If a guy played like a dog somewhere else and then comes to Foxboro, he's going to play like a dog again (and that's the difference, of course, between Hayensworth and Ochocinco -- he's been useless on the field but Ochocinco clearly cares. That means something). The Patriot Way worked as an idea when there was top-level talent and guys who wanted to actually play football. History means zilch to guys like Albert Hayensworth. Bill Belichick and his five rings means squat to guys like Albert Hayensworth. Winning -- and he'll never have a better chance to win a Super Bowl -- means nothing to guys like Albert Hayensworth.

Bottom line? He is what he is. And the man who made a slight variation of that phrase famous hoped -- just this once -- that it wasn't true.

Turned out it was never more right.