So here's the question: Now that head coach Jim Zorn no longer calls the plays in Washington, should we expect something different from the Redskins?
Uh, no.
|
|
| Few things have gone Jim Zorn's way this season. (Getty Images) |
That doesn't mean it can't. Hey, in 2006, Baltimore coach Brian Billick fired his offensive coordinator -- then, Jim Fassel -- midseason and assumed the play-calling. Result: The Ravens finished a franchise-best 13-3 and won their division.
In 2002, Fassel, then the head coach of the New York Giants, took over the play-calling from his offensive coordinator, Sean Payton, and the Giants doubled their points during the second half of the season and also reached the playoffs.
But there's a difference: Billick and Fassel decided to take control of the play-calling. Zorn decided nothing -- he was asked to surrender the play-calling, and he agreed, basically because he had little or no choice.
"First of all," said Charley Casserly, former GM of the Redskins and now an analyst for CBS, "it was done publicly and immediately after the game. So you have to ask yourself: Why was this made public after a loss? The other thing is that it's clear it wasn't his idea. So, from a player's perspective, you have to ask yourself: Who's running this thing now? Here's someone we hired two weeks ago [offensive consultant Sherman Lewis] who was out of football a number of years, and now he's running the offense? From a leadership point of view, it compromises the head coach."
Casserly's point is this: When Zorn stands up at a team meeting and notifies players what he wants them to do, what he expects them to do, what he demands that they do, players aren't sure how to respond. And they're not sure because they're not sure who's in charge. Is it Zorn? Or is it Lewis, who was hired two weeks ago to be the offensive consultant.
Lewis knows the offense and is one of the sport's best-liked assistants, but some NFL sources don't believe he's ready to take on the play-calling -- even though he did it in Green Bay, Minnesota and Detroit and especially because he's been out of football for years. If they're right, and Lewis does no better than Zorn, then what? Go back to Zorn? I don't think so. But instead of one play caller who needs to be replaced, you would have two.
"That's got to affect a player's concentration," said Casserly.
Worse, it may affect the head coach's concentration.
"The minute Jim Zorn agreed to stop calling the plays," said one coach, "he stopped being the head coach."
If you live in Washington or follow the Redskins anything is better than what's happened the last six weeks. Because what happened the last six weeks has been a whole lot of nothing. In two of Washington's three home games, the Redskins failed to score a touchdown. Bad, huh? Read on. They haven't exceeded 17 points in any start anywhere this season and failed to top that number in 10 of the last 11 games. Worse, they became the first victory for three opponents, one of which was Detroit -- a team that had lost its last 19 straight.
It's pretty ugly in Washington these days, and the future looks bleaker. Look at the schedule: The Redskins just completed a six-game run where none of their opponents had a victory when the two met. None. In fact, the combined record of their first six opponents is 9-26, and four of those victories were over the Redskins. Now, they have, in order: Philadelphia, Denver, Dallas, Philadelphia again and then New Orleans. There's not a losing club in there, and their combined record is 17-4.
So a change in play-calling is going to make a difference?
"No," said Casserly, "because you don't change the players."
The quarterback was benched, the offensive line is banged up, the passing game is ineffective, Clinton Portis has one touchdown, Santana Moss has three games with two or fewer catches and Chris Cooley had one with none. Only St. Louis scores fewer points.
So now Sherm Lewis steps in -- in front of players Zorn coached last season -- and, suddenly, he makes the difference?
"No," said Billick, now a TV analyst. "Jim Zorn did not do this on his own. They basically stripped him of his play-calling, and that's not something ownership or management should do. When you do that to a head coach -- hey, it's extremely difficult when you do it with a coordinator, and I know -- but when you do that to a head coach, it undermines his leadership. Players know who's calling the shots, and it's not Jim Zorn.
"If Jim had said, 'We need to do something here because this isn't working,' that might have been OK. But this is 180 degrees different. Players will not respect it, and those players love and respect Jim Zorn. But they've stripped Jim of any possibility of leading them. You can't have screwed this up any worse than they have."
Billick agreed that something had to be done. But not this. He conceded there could be a one or two-game jump -- similar to what happened in St. Louis last year when Jim Haslett took over as the team's interim head coach. But then the Redskins would go back to becoming what they had been, just as the Rams became what they had been. The consensus is that Washington has more talent than that Rams' team -- a lot more talent -- but no longer has a head coach. And that's the next problem Washington must face.
"I feel for Jim," said a head coach who asked to remain anonymous. "I really do. He's going to be standing there on the sidelines Sunday doing -- what? It's sad."
Playr 
