If you're a football fan, you're probably aware that Albert Haynesworth, one of the most dominant (and highly-paid) defensive ends in the NFL, keeps failing the Washington Redskins' conditioning test, which consists of "two 300-yard shuttle runs broken into 25-yard increments, with three and a half minutes rest between the two repetitions." Each player is required to "run 25 yards, touch his foot on the line and run 25 yards back a total of six times. For offensive and defensive linemen, the first run must be completed in 70 seconds or less and the second set in less than 73 seconds." Despite several attempts, Haynesworth hasn't yet passed the test.
Sports journalists have seized upon this opportunity to show up Haynesworth as a disgruntled, unmotivated malingerer. One is ESPN's Mike Golic, a 47-year-old former NFL defensive end and current P90Xer, who announced that his Tony Horton-based training would power him through the conditioning test with flying colors. Some (like his "Mike and Mike" radio partner, Mike Greenburg) disagreed, but in the end, Golic successfully passed the test.
Or did he? According to the Washington Post:
[T]he circumstances were a bit questionable. [Golic] seemed to leave early on both attempts, he didn't necessarily reach every cone, and his finishing time for Part I was first called out as 71 seconds, then changed to 70. Part II was even worse; as a reader points out, the video shows 76 seconds of elapsed time, even though Mike Greenberg later says Golic finished in 73 seconds. Either way, he certainly came close to the appropriate time, and he's a similar weight to Haynesworth. Plus he's 47 years old.You be the judge:
