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I agree. The author is clearly missing that ARE's productivity is because of his situation and not necessarily talent. But, I do think Moss needs some kind of wakeup call. He's in a rut. And I wonder if a message can be sent through "not starting". You can "start" ARE and then still have him in the slot on most plays. BTW, I see him lineup outside plenty. He isn't always in the slot.
Zorn has said over and over he would call the same play again in that situation. For whatever reason, he truly believes it was the right call. I don't think that's him playing the blame game.But, he has said that he'd rethink the HB pass and probably do it on first down. While not going to the Gibbsian extent of taking blame, he has somewhat put that one on him for calling it in that position. He then goes on to say that the OL didn't sell run hard enough (Portis has said the same thing, even though I doubt it would have mattered), so he's still focusing on execution there.His press conferences and Q&A are a mess. It's pretty difficult to get clear, meaningful answers out of him. And it's not coach-speak. I think it's just him not being good in front of the camera. I hope his team meetings are like that.
I have no problems with occasional lineups made up of Thomas-Kelly-ARE, as much to try to kick start Thomas as to shake up Moss. This WR corps at least theoretically has more versatility to it than has any Redskins WR corps in years, and without an elite WR in it mixing and matching personnel groupings should be a regular staple anyway.
He learned a lot from Gibbs.
I remember him saying something similar a few years ago and Andy and Steve completely overreacted and thought Portis was hinting at some conversations he had with the team about his future. "He must know something!"
Yeah, but about 40% of those names are me.
Out of curiousity, who are the nine? Other than the three I listed and Ditka, the only one I can think of is Lombardi, who only coached for one season in Washington and led the Skins to their first winning record in 14 years in that one season. I'd say that counts as a success too. So already we're almost at a majority of success stories- 3.5, counting JJ as a half. OK, I just did some research and Flores apparently moved on and failed as well, but he was never considered a prime coaching candidate to begin with. Guys like Gruden, Shanahan and Cowher had sustained success that makes their career arcs to date look more like Holmgren and Parcells and JJ than Ditka and Flores (and, I'm guessing, the other failure examples out there). I'm not saying they're guaranteed to succeed, but I am saying that those who think their previous Super Bowl experience means they are more likely to fail are wrong.
Excuses, excuses. I just go by the numbers.Yeah, but about 40% of those names are me.
It's not that you can't have "success", but it rarely seems to be as much success. Take Parcells, who's about as good as anyone at improving teams he went to. Look at the final extent of his accomplishments stop by stop:Giants: 2 Super Bowl titlesPatriots: 1 Super Bowl appearanceJets: 1 AFC Championship Game appearanceCowboys: 2 playoff appearance (no wins)Holmgren, with fewer stops of course, was the same way. Ditto Ditka and Jimmy Johnson. It just becomes clear that if your goal is to win championships, and when you have one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world it should be, then you need to find someone on the way up. If you look farther down the list, then it's easier to find guys who were more successful in subsequent gigs (Norv, Wade Phillips, Jauron, etc.) but then who really wants them as their coach?Out of curiousity, who are the nine? Other than the three I listed and Ditka, the only one I can think of is Lombardi, who only coached for one season in Washington and led the Skins to their first winning record in 14 years in that one season. I'd say that counts as a success too. So already we're almost at a majority of success stories- 3.5, counting JJ as a half. OK, I just did some research and Flores apparently moved on and failed as well, but he was never considered a prime coaching candidate to begin with. Guys like Gruden, Shanahan and Cowher had sustained success that makes their career arcs to date look more like Holmgren and Parcells and JJ than Ditka and Flores (and, I'm guessing, the other failure examples out there). I'm not saying they're guaranteed to succeed, but I am saying that those who think their previous Super Bowl experience means they are more likely to fail are wrong.Of the 26 coaches that have won SBs, 9 were hired by different teams sometime after their SB win, and only 3 had decent/consistent playoff success (the 3 you listed). For numerous reasons, most of the former SB winning coaches either don't go on to coach other teams, or they don't go on to coach other teams successfully.Personally, I'm with redman on this. Find the young assistant who'll be the next SB winning coach. I'm not yet convinced that Zorn can't be that guy.
I thought of another one: Vermeil.Of course, he too had an astoundingly good QB in Warner to help him. Only Gruden seems to vary from that pattern, but then the Bucs were already pretty damn good when he got there.
I just don't buy this logic personally, because championships are so unlikely, especially in single-elimination playoff sports. I think that if your goal is to win championships the best thing you can do is hire someone who gets to the playoffs consistently, which gives you a better shot at having the chips fall in your direction. No big deal, you and I just have a different outlook here.It's not that you can't have "success", but it rarely seems to be as much success. Take Parcells, who's about as good as anyone at improving teams he went to. Look at the final extent of his accomplishments stop by stop:Giants: 2 Super Bowl titlesPatriots: 1 Super Bowl appearanceJets: 1 AFC Championship Game appearanceCowboys: 2 playoff appearance (no wins)Holmgren, with fewer stops of course, was the same way. Ditto Ditka and Jimmy Johnson. It just becomes clear that if your goal is to win championships, and when you have one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world it should be, then you need to find someone on the way up. If you look farther down the list, then it's easier to find guys who were more successful in subsequent gigs (Norv, Wade Phillips, Jauron, etc.) but then who really wants them as their coach?Out of curiousity, who are the nine? Other than the three I listed and Ditka, the only one I can think of is Lombardi, who only coached for one season in Washington and led the Skins to their first winning record in 14 years in that one season. I'd say that counts as a success too. So already we're almost at a majority of success stories- 3.5, counting JJ as a half. OK, I just did some research and Flores apparently moved on and failed as well, but he was never considered a prime coaching candidate to begin with. Guys like Gruden, Shanahan and Cowher had sustained success that makes their career arcs to date look more like Holmgren and Parcells and JJ than Ditka and Flores (and, I'm guessing, the other failure examples out there). I'm not saying they're guaranteed to succeed, but I am saying that those who think their previous Super Bowl experience means they are more likely to fail are wrong.Of the 26 coaches that have won SBs, 9 were hired by different teams sometime after their SB win, and only 3 had decent/consistent playoff success (the 3 you listed). For numerous reasons, most of the former SB winning coaches either don't go on to coach other teams, or they don't go on to coach other teams successfully.Personally, I'm with redman on this. Find the young assistant who'll be the next SB winning coach. I'm not yet convinced that Zorn can't be that guy.
I guess this is where we'll have to agree to disagree. The only thing clear to me is that the offensive players may not be as talented as we would like to believe. I can't chalk up dropped TD passes that hit a player's hands and players making bad reads and play adjustments to bad playcalling. 3 TDs were left on the field Sunday, during 3 different plays, that were completely the fault of the players executing the plays.It's not like the offense completely fails to move the ball, or that we've never seen this offense score in the red zone. Does Zorn shoulder some legitimate blame for the failure of some plays? Sure. Does he deserve to be fired for the overall performance of the offense this past Sunday? Hardly.
The flaw IMHO in that sort of thinking is that playoff coaching is its own skill. Some guys just don't seem to be able to up their game against the best opponents in the pressure of the playoffs, and the list is long in that regard. Marty's probably the most famous recent example, but Dennis Green, Herm Edwards, Wade Phillips, Dan Reeves and Marv Levy are all guys who have had multiple playoff appearances with little success, or at least ultimate failure in the case of Reeves and Levy, even with some elite teams and none of them are considered elite coaches. In fact their coaching limitations have been all too obvious. Virtually any team in the NFL year to year can get hot and make the playoffs. Winning championships simply doesn't happen by accident as a matter of coaching IMHO.
One more: Coughlin.
A few more "one more" and you're going to have to change your position.
Well I'm enjoying the talk despite us disagreeing.I agree the offense is not that talented. I agree passes have been dropped. None of those is attributable to Zorn. Bad reads, bad judgment, bad execution --- those things are shared responsibilities of coaches and players. Because if players aren't performing correctly often enough, it's a coach's job to get them to change that, or to put in another player who'll execute better. Our offensive personnel personnel is not the worst in the league, so it's not like there's no one else to put in. Teams who fail consistently due to player execution are generally teams with poor coaches. And poor players perhaps. It's a coach's responsibility to get players to play well. Zorn should not be fired for last Sunday. Add it to the previous Sunday's offensive performance, and the offensive performances of the last 8 games or more last year, and you have much more justification for firing him. They're bad offensively, and scored fewer points against the Reams than they did last year. They're showing no progress or are regressing. I'd love to see Zorn and the team turn it around. But coming out this Sunday doing the exact same things won't do it, no matter how well he explains why things didn't work.
A few more "one more" and you're going to have to change your position.
Yeah, yeah, I knew someone would say that. The point's still valid, however. The guys who have won multiple Super Bowls have been 1st gig guys: Lombardi; Landry; Noll; Flores; Gibbs; Walsh; Parcells; Johnson; Siefert; Shanahan.
Agreed to the first part.As far as Zorn's part goes, I disagree with the second. I don't think he's been the weak link in the chain come Sunday afternoons. Maybe he is failing from Monday to Saturday, which results in player failures on Sunday. I don't know. But it's not like he's "buying the groceries", so I don't think that he can be completely faulted for the roster he has to work with.fatness said:
Me too. I was fine with going for it on both 4th downs. I the second one, I think it makes more sense to run up the middle to reduce the chance of losing 2 yards. Making them start the final drive backed up to their end zone is huge.Maroney=Sped said:dgreen said:I agree. This was not a complaint I had about Zorn. He just needs to put the game more into Campbell's hands, particularly in the red zone.
I listened to Sheehan interview Zorn. Zorn said the last thing he wanted to do was kick the ball off and give them a chance for a big return.Atlhough I was ok with going for it on 4th down, I would have hoped he would be more encouraging about the offense or defense, rather than be scared of a special teams play. And the special teams have played pretty well so far.TankRizzo said:I don't know if it was killer instinct or not....to me it looked more like he was a cornered rat. He knew the coming wrath from not scoring points and I think that was a last ditch effort to get into the endzone. I say this mostly because of his playcalling when in the redzone. The playing it safe inside the 20 is in sharp contrast to throwing caution into the wind and going for it on 4th. I think he stepped back, saw the score and instantly felt the pressure to try and save some face.Maroney=Sped said:dgreen said:
Tom Coughlin looks like a successful retread. And he was only marginally successful in his first stint.Jon Gruden worked out ok in Tampa for a while.TobiasFunke said:
Gibbs really had final say over all football matters, but he worked with Snyder and Cerrato and had them included in everything. He publicly stated that decision were a made by committee by the three and it worked well. Unfortunately, Snyder and Cerrato are now convinced that this front office structure is an awesome structure and they just need to find the right head coach to fit into this structure, a head coach without final say on personnel. And no coach that think he will get other opportunities will accept it this front office structure.Maroney=Sped said:
I think these guys are a different story.The reason I looked at Super Bowl winning coaches to begin with is because that's the reason Cower and Shanahan are the top names that get thrown around when discussing the next 'Skins coaching options. They've won Super Bowls.
Hmmm, missed Ditka, so there are 10. I believe the ten coaches to win a SB with one team and then coach another team sometime afterward are Ditka, Seifert, Parcells, Lombardi, Jimmy Johnson, Flores, Vermeil, Stram, McCafferty and Holmgren.ETA: And after further review, Week Ewbank is similar to Shula in that he won an NFL Championship with one team (2 with the Colts) and a Super Bowl with another (Jets).TobiasFunke said:
I'm pretty confident that the team and the fan base are not just looking for "good". They're looking for someone who can build a strong, long-term winner and win championships. The basis for comparison, therefore, is guys who have won Super Bowls.
I listened to Sheehan interview Zorn. Zorn said the last thing he wanted to do was kick the ball off and give them a chance for a big return.Atlhough I was ok with going for it on 4th down, I would have hoped he would be more encouraging about the offense or defense, rather than be scared of a special teams play. And the special teams have played pretty well so far.TankRizzo said:I don't know if it was killer instinct or not....to me it looked more like he was a cornered rat. He knew the coming wrath from not scoring points and I think that was a last ditch effort to get into the endzone. I say this mostly because of his playcalling when in the redzone. The playing it safe inside the 20 is in sharp contrast to throwing caution into the wind and going for it on 4th. I think he stepped back, saw the score and instantly felt the pressure to try and save some face.Maroney=Sped said:dgreen said:
His explanation certainly lacked inspiration. But, like I've said, I think that's just the way Zorn comes off in interviews. He isn't a wordsmith and he's kind of goofy.
It pains me to watch the Giants, the Steelers, the Ravens, even the Eagles. Why cant we be like them. What has to happen? Is Synder to arogant to give up control to win SuperBowl(s)? Why can't we get a proven personnel person in here? A good young HUNGRY coach, not scared to make calls. Someone who can build this team correctly. Again we are farther away then we want to belive. This team is 3 plus years away. And needs to be reshuffled alot. Our oline has guys that played with leather helmets. Our db's seem to have no hands. I just don't understand why we can't get on the right track. I'm 35 years old. I want to enjoy a superbowl as an adult, and I don't mean an old man ####ting in my diaper. I'm not even sure that we would win with no salary cap. I'm sorry back to the regular program.
I really want Zorn and Campbell to succeed. If they don't it's just one more transition, only this time the makeover will be major.
"The two girls in front of us were drunk before the game started. They grabbed one of our signs and trashed it (real classy) because were Vikings fans, and then spent most of the first half mocking us instead of watching the game because the Lions were ahead.
They left their seats and we thought they were gone for good but somehow they managed to buy even more beer and get back to their seats. They were spilling beer on themselves, the seats, and some of the other fans. After they spilled quite a bit of beer on the guys in the row below them, they turned around and told them to SIT DOWN. One girl didnt like that so she poured the rest of her beer on his head. Then I knew it was time to start the camera"
Vermeil didn't win a Superbowl with the Eagles. They lost
Hearing Zorn's voice in the audio clip I heard on sportscenter, you can sense he is really feeling the pressure and that the criticism is getting to him. This is very close to becoming a lost season already. Now I'm not too much of a
to think they are super bowl contenders at this point, but I really did believe coming into this season that team had a decent shot at the playoffs. 
That's a veteran team and a good locker room. It's going to take more than a 1-2 start for that team to fall apart. Now, the fans and maybe Snyder might come unglued, but not the team IMHO.if the Skins lose to Detroit (which a lot of people are predicting) how bad do you think the players quit on Zorn? There's already a feel that the team is 0-2 instead of 1-1 as most took that Rams "win" as a loss since the performance was so poor. I'd hate to think this team would quit, but it's hard to imagine them rallying around the guy Portis called a "genius". Oh wellz. Time to draft more "U" players for the Skins. Jacory Harris and Graig Cooper would be good fits
We could take a whole bunch of them 'Canes!!! Harris better not come out...he needs to stay there until he graduates, he has us lookin' too good! VA Tech is next!!!if the Skins lose to Detroit (which a lot of people are predicting) how bad do you think the players quit on Zorn? There's already a feel that the team is 0-2 instead of 1-1 as most took that Rams "win" as a loss since the performance was so poor. I'd hate to think this team would quit, but it's hard to imagine them rallying around the guy Portis called a "genius". Oh wellz. Time to draft more "U" players for the Skins. Jacory Harris and Graig Cooper would be good fits
I'll get to see them when they come here to UCF, looking forward to it!
Coming into the season I thought they had the potential to fall anywhere between 6-10 to 10-6. After they put kelly as the #2 I was really optimistic about things....then they took the field.Hearing Zorn's voice in the audio clip I heard on sportscenter, you can sense he is really feeling the pressure and that the criticism is getting to him. This is very close to becoming a lost season already. Now I'm not too much of ato think they are super bowl contenders at this point, but I really did believe coming into this season that team had a decent shot at the playoffs.
I really just don't get Zorn at all. If he puts it all together this week and blows out the Lions, I think the majority of this will go away as long as the offense continues to look competent. I think the general consensus is that him getting cold feet in the redzone is due to lack of faith in Campbell. He needs to trust him during the game and let him play. Let him screw up or otherwise give you reason to play it safe down there, but it's like Campbell's abilities are top secret and nobody is allowed to see it. If he continues down the same old path though, things are only going to get hotter for him...like it or not, this is what he signed up for.
I was JUST about to say "one thing I think we can all agree on is that firing Marty was probably one of the worst things Snyder has done". The team was set up nearly PERFECT for Marty. Stephen Davis carrying the ball and I was salivating over the prospect of switching to the 3-4 and finally seeing Lavar's true potential. Short of hearing the cloak and dagger story about Gibbs coming back, I think that 8-8 season with Marty is the happiest I've felt about the 'skins since Snyder took over.
Vermeil won a Super Bowl in St. Louis and then went on to coach at KC.
Maybe I should have been more specific and stated that I don't think the particular plays being called are the weak link. Maybe he's so engrossed in the playcalling that managing the rest of the game is too much for him. If that is truly the case, I absolutely believe he needs to delegate some responsibilities. If that's what brings the ship down, I hope he at least learned a valuable lesson. But it's not like he doesn't have handpicked guys on his staff. Sherman Smith, Stump Mitchell, Chris Meidt and Scott Wachenheim were all Zorn hires, weren't they? Why wouldn't he trust any of them to help out?ETA: But that still doesn't change the fact that he's somewhat handcuffed by the roster. He may have a say in player acquisition, but I don't think there's any of us that believe he's free to hire and, maybe more importantly, fire whoever he wants to fit his system.didn't you read Nittany Lion's postyou've got it completely backwards!
