Have you ever seen the Washington Post’s D.C. Sports Bog by Dan Steinberg? Great stuff, and this week he examines ‘Skins head coach Jimmy Zorn trying to take a timeout as special teams coach Danny Smith comes over to throw his body all over the idea. Steinberg breaks this down Zapruder-like in his blog with great commentary. Click the link above and it will take you right to his breakdown. And for this frame by frame, there’s not a timeout taker on the grassy knoll.
APThe seat will remain hot for Jim Zorn no matter the outcome against the Lions on Sunday.
The pressure is really on Zorn this week as the ‘Skins face the Lions, a team that has not won since December 2007. Zorn had a little confrontation this week with legendary Redskins quarterback and radio analyst Sonny Jurgensen, who also doubles as the best friend of owner Daniel Snyder. Jurgensen questioned the play calling in the red zone, specifically the Clinton Portis halfback option pass, which works well going to the left but not as well going to the right. Most teams forget who’s left-handed at running back and it catches teams off guard. Anyway, the play failed and the ‘Skins ended up going 0-5 in the red zone, which put Zorn under enormous pressure.
Here’s part of the Jurgensen-Zorn confrontation from D.C. Sports Bog:
“Third down, I'm the quarterback, and you call the halfback throwing the ball for me, I'm calling timeout or calling an audible,” Jurgensen said. “I'm not letting the halfback throw it. That's what you pay me for.”
“Well then, I would have to take you out of the game,” Zorn countered. “As soon as you called timeout, I'd say what's wrong with my play, because...”
“It didn't work!” Jurgensen interrupted.
“No, but I called it to work. Alright?” Zorn said. “We called it to work. It didn't work. There were a lot of plays out there that didn't work. And I'd take you out of the game. Sorry, Sonny.”
APExpect Clinton Portis to do more running and less passing Sunday in Detroit.
Not a good idea to get into a confrontation with a man who’s best friends with your boss. But clearly, the heat is on Zorn, and whether he wins Sunday in Detroit, the heat will remain on him, in large part because the offense will fail to achieve success. And he got the job as head coach for his ability to run an offense, even though he never called plays in Seattle.
Is this a must-win game for the ‘Skins? I would say yes because the level of confidence in Zorn is very low right now in Washington. In a town where all that matters is approval ratings, Zorn’s rating is not recognizable. And unless he can catch lightning in a bottle, this Redskins team will never be good enough to be an NFC playoff team. Is that Zorn’s fault? No, not at all. This team has design and production problems. However, the owner who designed the team is going to blame the man who’s in charge of production. That’s how it works in the NFL.
Follow me on Twitter: michaelombardi
Lombardi,
Your columns are getting shorter by the day what happened to NFP? Get out of the film room and away from NFL network. Your posts last year were great, these are starting to read like long form tweets.
I dont think its just me, I've seen other people comment on this, and as well as friends who I turned on to the NFP when I first came across it last year.
Take a lesson from your boy Simmons, longer is better.
Dan Snyder is an enigma. He's got a consistently valuable franchise monetarily, but fails to field a team that ever reaches expectations. There's a reason he had to promote Zorn as he did, not very many people want to work with him and he'll have an even harder time finding a replacement after him.
Two Things -
1) The Redskins couldn't happen to a nicer guy than Dan Snyder
2) While I love Simmons' columns, I find nothing wrong with the brevity of this piece. Seems to me that everything that needs to be said... got said.
Steinberg's piece is very funny, thanks for finding it Mike.
Would a high profile coach be willing to take over the team mid-season?
Sonny would be doing the Skins a big, big favor by spending more time on his weekly show talking about the weak personnel on the offensive line than challenging individual play calls. The reason they call gimmick plays like this is that they don't have a big red zone receiver and the line sucks. questionable call, maybe, but it's the fundamental issues that force them to make these kinds of decisions.
Oh, for the Daniel to actually have a strategy in place, like Atlanta... Instead every year he tries to fool people into thinking that the Skins have a legitimate shot at the playoffs.
One egotistical jerk hires another egotistical jerk, and you wonder why the Washington Redskins are a mess.
GC in DC, Last time I looked, the Skins had not one but three big red zone receivers, ie Kelly, thomas and Mitchell, plus Cooley and Davis. Of ocurse, they're not very useful sitting on the bench watching 5-8 Santana Moss getting blanketed in the endzone. It's not like this red zone issue just developed. It was a problem last year as well in the second half.
I give Sonny credit for doing his job and not being a homer. The play calling and QB play have been terrible, and Zorn and Campbell act like nothing is wrong. I don;t think the O line is all that awful either. Even with his slow reads and inability to move in the pocket, Campbell has not been sacked much.
I have a feeling that Jim Zorn will not be back for another season after this one if the Redskins don't suddenly become world beaters.
Since Snyder has bought the team, the Redskins seemingly have had no patience to develop talent or any capacity to deal with adversity. There are too many examples to mention here, but these two facets are intertwined.
The one year where they seemed to have a handle on things was Marty Schottenheimer's year. They purged the roster to get under the cap, started out 0-5, people were screaming and Marty looked like Norman Dale sending out four players on the floor. Then, slowly but surely, they established their fundamentals, developed some young talent, and ended up 8-8. Of course, Snyder fired him for not being "modern" or "exciting" enough.
"Of course, Snyder fired him for not being "modern" or "exciting" enough."
==
Yeah, that's what they said. But IMO Schottenheimer got fired because he wanted to do things his way and not Snyder's way. That's the key for Snyder: he wants to win, but it has to be his way. He has to be the smart guy.
I now consider the Redskins to be the East Coast Raiders. Consider:
- Both teams delude themselves into thinking they are playoff-caliber.
- Both teams make weird personnel decisions that are (barely) justifiable in the short-term, but never add up to any kind of big picture.
- Both teams have constant front office and roster churn.
- All other NFL fans really enjoy watching them fail.
But obviously the main similarity is the owner. Both teams are run by owners who insist on people doing it his way; who pick favorites, making it even harder to evaluate talent; and who punish people who tell them that they are wrong. Each organization is so worried about agreeing with whatever The Boss wants, I don't even think they know how bad they are, or what their weaknesses are, or what they need to do to fix their problems.
As a Skins fan I went into this season not mad, not hopeful, but resigned. Campbell is a nice guy with some skills and he'll make a decent backup QB, but he's never going to make the leap. Jim Zorn seems like a nice guy, but he's obviously in way over his head (not to mention he's head coach, OC and QB coach!). The season has 6-10 to 8-8 written all over it; the Redskins will miss the playoffs; Zorn and Campbell will take the blame; Snyder will write Shanahan/Gruden/Holmgren/Cowher a big check; and we'll start all over again.
Nothing will change until Snyder realizes that he is the problem, and changes his ways.
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Sep 24, 2009
05:43 PM
It's always a must win when you play the Lions. Everyone gets embarrassed if they lose the homecoming game.