LaVar moves on

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen

By David Elfin

"I can recall so many games. My rookie year, we beat Baltimore. They won the Super Bowl, but we didn't just win, we beat them boys up, Stephen Davis stiff-arming Rod Woodson for the go-ahead touchdown. When we beat Dallas in Darrell Green's last game. I probably helped Bruce [Smith] get his last five sacks on his way to the record."

Green was elected to the Hall of Fame this year. Smith and Woodson likely will be this year. Davis helped lead the Carolina Panthers to Super Bowl XXXVIII.

Arrington left many wanting more and wondering how good he could have been.

"LaVar was a great athlete, but sometimes injuries just have a way of knocking you down," says former Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher, who first saw Arrington play in high school. "When he was at Penn State, I thought he would be the perfect linebacker in a 3-4 defense. Unfortunately, it never unfolded that way. But LaVar had a very good career. He was one of the elite linebackers."

Arrington would've loved to play for Cowher, a former linebacker who coached the Steelers from 1992 to 2006. Instead, he was drafted second overall in 2000 by the Redskins, for whom he played under five coaches and five defensive coordinators during his first five seasons.

"I believe I would've rivaled Lawrence Taylor if I had gone to Pittsburgh," Arrington says. "If I had played in a defensive system like Pittsburgh's, they wouldn't have been able to stop me. Think about how [coordinator] Marvin Lewis used me in a hybrid 3-4 where I was playing end. I led all linebackers with 11.5 sacks. And then he was gone [to Cincinnati], and my production was gone."

Arrington's final two seasons in Washington were filled with injuries, humiliation and tension.

A dispute with owner Dan Snyder over a December 2003 contract extension intended to help the Redskins with the salary cap boiled over into a feud with new defensive boss Gregg Williams and linebackers coach Dale Lindsey in 2004.

At times, Arrington didn't play even in the 2005 season even though he was healthy and replacement Warrick Holdman was a cipher.

"If Gregg hadn't been corrupted by the front office agenda, I probably would've had a hell of a year with him, but there were too many hidden agendas for me to be successful in that regime," says Arrington, who later patched things up with Williams and said he no longer has hard feelings toward Lindsey either.

Arrington is not so kindly disposed toward Gibbs, who retired in January with a year left on his five-year, $25 million contract with the Redskins.

"I called Joe Gibbs a coward for leaving," Arrington said. "You came in, you made some money for your NASCAR team. No one else is going to say that. I'm sure more people thought I was a [jerk] for saying that. Joe wouldn't call me because he knows. There are a lot of people who know the truth about what went down with me and the Redskins."

As for Snyder, Arrington called him after Taylor's funeral to try to heal their breach and greeted him at a luncheon last week, but to no avail, he believes.

"I think Dan Snyder is scared to death of me," Arrington said. "He won't look at me. I tried to shake his hand at that luncheon. He shook my hand and was like, 'How you doing, LaVar?' and kept moving. I'm probably the only person that's ever stood up to him and never backed down. I actually humbled myself to call Dan after Sean passed away to try to bury whatever me and him had going on between us. He called me back, and it was almost like he was reading a script. I root for the Redskins because how I feel about the fans outweighs how the organization treated me. I always take pleasure in taking jabs at Dan because people like him need that. There's got to be a person out there who's not afraid to do it."

Snyder was traveling last week and couldn't be reached for comment. Despite that bitterness and the economic downturn that threatens so many businesses, especially startups, Arrington loves his life.

"I'm definitely happy," he said. "My wife [Trishia] has made me mature more as a man because of the responsibility that she forces on me. I never took out the trash. I always had other people do things for me. Now, I take my daughter to school, I change diapers. I feel like after everything that I've been through, the best part of my story is ahead of me. I'm not going to sit back and watch it happen or let it happen. I'm going to make it happen."