By Tony Kornheiser
Washington Post Columnist
Monday, November 2, 1998; Page D1

Memo to Michael Westbrook: This isn't working out.

Perhaps you ought to pack your things into your Lamborghini – pack light; it's a sports car – and drive out of town. Goodbye. Enjoy the fall foliage.

The day you were drafted a gleeful Norv Turner said you were going to be "a great player." And you may yet be. But you're probably going to have to be a great player somewhere else.

Yes, you're the most talented player on the Washington Redskins. But you're a team killer. You're not much different than Chris Webber – you have all the talent in the world, and none of the commitment necessary to maximize it.

Every year it's something else. Either you're chronically hurt and missing loads of games. Or you punch out your teammate. Or you get some stupid penalty that costs your team a victory (and maybe the playoffs).

Or you do what you did Saturday: You didn't show up for practice, and you didn't reach anybody in charge to let them know where you were or what was wrong with you.

Later, you told someone you ate some bad fish.

What fish did you order, "Jaws"?

It's a fairly simple rule: Even guys who have $17 million contracts have to call the team if they're going to miss practice. And it's not like Westbrook didn't have the phone numbers. According to the Redskins, he has the trainers' numbers, his offensive coach's number and an emergency number at Redskin Park. But he didn't reach any of them. He didn't reach any coach or any player.

The Redskins held a meeting at 10:30 Saturday morning and a walk-through at 11:30. And the first time the Redskins heard anything from Westbrook was after noon, when a team employee knocked on the door of Westbrook's home. Westbrook answered, and said he wasn't feeling well.

We've all been there, throwing our guts up. But you don't throw up continuously. There is usually a break in the action when you can get to a phone.

Westbrook finally called Turner at 12:30, and Turner told him not to bother coming to the game Sunday; he'd see him, instead, on Monday.

Well, today is Monday.

If I ran the team I would fire Michael Westbrook today.

I would let him become someone else's problem.

Some people will say that being fined and being declared inactive for one game is enough. They'll say that you don't cut Westbrook because he has too much talent, and he can help you win games. They'll say that you should put Westbrook back in the lineup, and show him off to your advantage so that maybe down the road you can get something for him.

But I say it's beyond repair here. It's time for this beleaguered coach and beleaguered general manager to make a stand and say: Enough is enough. Perhaps the only good thing about being 1-7 is that when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose. If Turner and Casserly are going to get fired anyway, why not show some spine here and now? And if they're going to be here next year, why would they want Westbrook anywhere near them? How many times are they supposed to run up, like Charlie Brown, to kick the ball, and watch him yank it away?

The concern seems to be that Westbrook is too good to let go for nothing. But let's not delude ourselves into mistaking talent for production. Michael Westbrook is not Dennis Rodman, whom the Chicago Bulls tolerate because he gets 20 rebounds every night. Nor is he John Riggins, who got 20 touchdowns a year. In that case the behavioral difference between "eccentric" and "toxic" is the approximate distance between Raljon and Canton.

The Redskins were 0-7 with Westbrook, and they are now 1-0 without him. Albert Connell and James Thrash caught six passes for 61 yards in Westbrook's absence. And in one of life's small ironies, Stephen Davis – whom you'll remember as the slamee from a previous Westbrook controversy – caught five passes for 65 yards and a touchdown. (I don't want to make too much of this, and you wouldn't want to make a living doing this, but the Redskins won without three of their highest-paid players: Westbrook, Gus Frerotte and Dana Stubblefield. And this was the best the defensive line has looked all season.)

Yes, Westbrook has great talent and great potential. But he has been a tease here. He has never been a dependable, consistent player here. From week to week you still don't know what you're going to get from him. For all his potential Westbrook is in his fourth season, and he still hasn't scored more than three touchdowns in any of them. That's not much return for the $17 million they agreed to pay him. He still runs the wrong routes – so that even when he's wide open the quarterback doesn't know where to look for him. Westbrook is 26. He's not supposed to be making these kinds of mistakes anymore. He has broken more hearts in Washington than Monica Lewinsky ever dreamed of.

The sad truth is that the cornerstones of the Turner-Casserly Era have crumbled. Michael Westbrook and Heath Shuler were going to replicate Michael Irvin and Troy Aikman. But Shuler couldn't play, and Westbrook has continued to place his needs ahead of his team's. He seems incapable of putting aside his own personality and becoming a team member. He draws attention to himself, and expects to always be forgiven.

Westbrook is a classic example of a player who got all the accolades and all the money before he ever earned it in the pros – and never learned any humility. He always assumed he was a star here. If anything went wrong, it couldn't be his fault. In his head he's always the victim.

Writers and broadcasters in this city have called for Norv Turner to get tough, to take a bold step to show he's in charge. He did that by making Westbrook inactive yesterday. Now he and the Redskins organization can go further in making a statement about what a team is all about by cutting Michael Westbrook loose, once and for all.