So Albert Haynesworth talked about his recent signing with the Redskins today on Sporting News Radio.

What should excite Bucs fans is Haynesworth implied that the Bucs were on center stage ready to pony up the $41 million in guaranteed money he received, as reported by ESPN.com.

You came from a team that had great success last year, do you think you can have that same success quickly in Washington?
“I really think so, that was the one thing looking into it, because we did have both the same money on the table and everybody knows that one was from Tampa.

Today, Joe’s friend Steve Duemig, of 620 AM, The Sports Animal, was floating a theory that the Bucs are avoiding signing some free agents and might discard draft picks in order to not have to pay out big signing bonuses.

Joe hopes The Big Dog is wrong. And it seems Haynesworth himself may cool speculation that the Bucs are playing cheapskates out there in free agent land.

Another interesting element of the near-miss on Face Stomper was that Mark Dominik painted himself in the corner when he cut Derrick Brooks. This, apparently, scared off Haynesworth, at least that’s what he told Tim Montemayor of The Sporting News Radio, via Anwar Richardson of the Tampa Tribune.

If Derrick Brooks had not been cut, would you have gone to Tampa?

“Yeah, it was a few things we looked at. You couldn’t really say that, but cutting a bunch of those guys and having a bunch of new starters didn’t help the situation any. I felt comfortable with Raheem, he seemed to be a good person and he’s going to be a good coach, and I thought they had a lot of upside. But then they started whacking people, I guess they wanted to have that fresh new look and that’s what they went for. It didn’t really scare me off, but it didn’t really help the situation.”

Nice job, Dominik. Though Joe isn’t losing sleep over Face Stomper leaving, it’s already clear Dominik didn’t just get burned already by cutting Brooks, he got roasted, and deservedly so!