How is Jim Zorn doing so far?

Call me naive but I think a whole lot has been overblown for the need for experience above a position coach in order to be successful. Did Mike Tomlin's one year as a DC for Minnesota make him that much more prepared to be a head coach? He seemed to do ok last year. He's got a solid staff experienced with these players, a strong base of talent who is eager to learn and run his system and he comes from probably the best coaching 'tree' in football today. He's doing fine and will continue to do fine.

Yeah I do believe if Zorn will get anywhere with this organization than we are going to have to be patient and give him a year or so to mold the team in his image.

Zorn is a smart, savvy guy. I don't think he is as patient as we might think. He wants to win now, and he is already proving to be a good motivator. I think he'll take risks to win, too. Joe Gibbs defaulted to the "avoid losing" approach too often for me. Let's go out and win!

From Wickipedia: Of the 26 Redskins coaches, seven have been elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Ray Flaherty, Turk Edwards, Curly Lambeau, Otto Graham, Vince Lombardi, George Allen, and Joe Gibbs.

Let's look at the last 38 years.. Only 2 winners in the group, both Hall of Famers.

George Allen: The future is now...67-30
Jack Pardee: Coach of the Year and then out...24-24
Joe Gibbs I: Coach of the Year in his 2nd and 3rd year...124-60
Richie Pettibon: What, me coach?...4-12
Norv Turner: Never react to anything...49-59
Terry Robiskie: Never had a chance. Probably didn't deserve one...1-2
Marty Schottenheimer: The most boring coach in history. Full of it, too...8-8
Steve Spurrier: Ole Ball Coach. Full of it, too...12-20
Joe Gibbs II: Like a second helping; never as good and gives heartburn...30-34
Jm Zorn: He's gotta do better than some of these guys...our coaches since 1971.

Other winners: Ray Flaherty, Dutch Bergman, Dudley DeGroot, Dick Todd...and that takes us to 1951. Next winner? VINCE LOMBARDI!!! WE LOVE THAT GUY!!!

COME ON JIM ZORN!!!

I think that Jim Zorn has done a good job with how he has dealed with the absenses of both Laron and Shawn Springs.

So far so good I guess, but that's not saying much. We simply don't have enough to go on in order to judge how he's doing.

I disagree. There are a lot of aspects to being a successful head coach. Let me list a few.

1. Interface with Owner. Zorn has a great respect for Mr. Snyder and seems to be handling this well.
2. Interface with coaches - I've heard a lot of positive things about teamwork and listening. It takes a team of coaches to win. Last year we had great coaches but Sanders and Williams were too experienced and set in their ways to work together.

The coaches respect Zorn for coming in to a playoff team and keeping what was working - including the terminology and focusing on fixing what needed help. This says a lot about Zorn as well as Bugel and Blache

3. Interface with players - Zorn as a former player understands players and is making them work really hard - but in a way where they respect him, they want to win for him. Zorn is the Anti-Parcells. It's much easier to come in and run a military boot camp - than to get players to play hard out of desire. After Lewis left us the defensive players wanted things done a certain way and our D went down since the players were running the D instead of the coaches. Zorn is clearly running the show - but listens to the players and they like him. If he can succeed in getting a quality offense down and listening to the players then it will be hard to beet us.

4. Interface with media - Zorn is creating great positive spirit by always being upbeat, honest and realistic.

5. Thorough planning of off season - he's done a good job with this too.

6. Taking over from Gibbs - taking over from a legend is very hard. In a lot of ways this is still Gibbs team. Zorn has been smart enough to keep what was working and humble enough to only install parts that can be improved. When we win, and I think we will Gibbs gets a lot of the credit as well as Zorn for building on Gibbs instead of breaking down to build up again.

7. X's and O's and play calling. This is where we can't yet judge Zorn. He may be a lousy play caller and he may create lousy plays. But Turner was a scientist - more than a coach and football is won on emotion more than logic. If Zorn's team will play for him hard - even if he calls the wrong plays - he'll win and he'll also learn. Zorn is a rookie and will make rookie mistakes - but we need to give him some time to develop and make those mistakes and learn from them. I think Zorn has demonstrated that he can listen will and learn from experience. And in any case, maybe Zorn will turn out to be a play calling genius as well as a creative guru who makes plays that work. I like what he said about running the same plays while varying who is doing what and switching around receivers and sending portis out on patterns etc... Do you guys have any idea what confusing mess this will create for defenses? They'll need to play more zone than man to man and this will open up the pass game - especially for a WCO.

My prediction is that Zorn is going to make the NFL to like the arena league and we'll resemble the recent Rams (ironically). I think Zorn will be able to pull off what Sanders never was given the chance to try.

My big question is what happens in the rain and snow in December when we need to rely heavily on the run game - can we win key games then???

Excellent post HLSF.

Personally, I like Zorn's overall demeanor. He exudes a quiet confidence which is reasurring in a way. I'm interested to see how he'll handle real pressure situations though.

I disagree. There are a lot of aspects to being a successful head coach. Let me list a few.

1. Interface with Owner. Zorn has a great respect for Mr. Snyder and seems to be handling this well.
2. Interface with coaches - I've heard a lot of positive things about teamwork and listening. It takes a team of coaches to win. Last year we had great coaches but Sanders and Williams were too experienced and set in their ways to work together.

The coaches respect Zorn for coming in to a playoff team and keeping what was working - including the terminology and focusing on fixing what needed help. This says a lot about Zorn as well as Bugel and Blache

3. Interface with players - Zorn as a former player understands players and is making them work really hard - but in a way where they respect him, they want to win for him. Zorn is the Anti-Parcells. It's much easier to come in and run a military boot camp - than to get players to play hard out of desire. After Lewis left us the defensive players wanted things done a certain way and our D went down since the players were running the D instead of the coaches. Zorn is clearly running the show - but listens to the players and they like him. If he can succeed in getting a quality offense down and listening to the players then it will be hard to beet us.

4. Interface with media - Zorn is creating great positive spirit by always being upbeat, honest and realistic.

5. Thorough planning of off season - he's done a good job with this too.

6. Taking over from Gibbs - taking over from a legend is very hard. In a lot of ways this is still Gibbs team. Zorn has been smart enough to keep what was working and humble enough to only install parts that can be improved. When we win, and I think we will Gibbs gets a lot of the credit as well as Zorn for building on Gibbs instead of breaking down to build up again.

7. X's and O's and play calling. This is where we can't yet judge Zorn. He may be a lousy play caller and he may create lousy plays. But Turner was a scientist - more than a coach and football is won on emotion more than logic. If Zorn's team will play for him hard - even if he calls the wrong plays - he'll win and he'll also learn. Zorn is a rookie and will make rookie mistakes - but we need to give him some time to develop and make those mistakes and learn from them. I think Zorn has demonstrated that he can listen will and learn from experience. And in any case, maybe Zorn will turn out to be a play calling genius as well as a creative guru who makes plays that work. I like what he said about running the same plays while varying who is doing what and switching around receivers and sending portis out on patterns etc... Do you guys have any idea what confusing mess this will create for defenses? They'll need to play more zone than man to man and this will open up the pass game - especially for a WCO.

My prediction is that Zorn is going to make the NFL to like the arena league and we'll resemble the recent Rams (ironically). I think Zorn will be able to pull off what Sanders never was given the chance to try.

My big question is what happens in the rain and snow in December when we need to rely heavily on the run game - can we win key games then???


I agree with Lady Brave. Dude, your post rocks!

I just don't totally agree with the arena league idea however. More like the Seahaux or old 49ers. Haux beat us twice in the POs in three years.

Interaction with the owner, coaches, players, fans, media is good and all but let's remember how excited we were about Brandon Lloyd because of his Training Camp blog. Alls I'm saying is we have no reason to be down on Zorn at this time, but at the same time there really is nothing of substance with which to say he's a great coach.

I disagree. There are a lot of aspects to being a successful head coach. Let me list a few.

1. Interface with Owner. Zorn has a great respect for Mr. Snyder and seems to be handling this well.
2. Interface with coaches - I've heard a lot of positive things about teamwork and listening. It takes a team of coaches to win. Last year we had great coaches but Sanders and Williams were too experienced and set in their ways to work together.

The coaches respect Zorn for coming in to a playoff team and keeping what was working - including the terminology and focusing on fixing what needed help. This says a lot about Zorn as well as Bugel and Blache

3. Interface with players - Zorn as a former player understands players and is making them work really hard - but in a way where they respect him, they want to win for him. Zorn is the Anti-Parcells. It's much easier to come in and run a military boot camp - than to get players to play hard out of desire. After Lewis left us the defensive players wanted things done a certain way and our D went down since the players were running the D instead of the coaches. Zorn is clearly running the show - but listens to the players and they like him. If he can succeed in getting a quality offense down and listening to the players then it will be hard to beet us.

4. Interface with media - Zorn is creating great positive spirit by always being upbeat, honest and realistic.

5. Thorough planning of off season - he's done a good job with this too.

6. Taking over from Gibbs - taking over from a legend is very hard. In a lot of ways this is still Gibbs team. Zorn has been smart enough to keep what was working and humble enough to only install parts that can be improved. When we win, and I think we will Gibbs gets a lot of the credit as well as Zorn for building on Gibbs instead of breaking down to build up again.

7. X's and O's and play calling. This is where we can't yet judge Zorn. He may be a lousy play caller and he may create lousy plays. But Turner was a scientist - more than a coach and football is won on emotion more than logic. If Zorn's team will play for him hard - even if he calls the wrong plays - he'll win and he'll also learn. Zorn is a rookie and will make rookie mistakes - but we need to give him some time to develop and make those mistakes and learn from them. I think Zorn has demonstrated that he can listen will and learn from experience. And in any case, maybe Zorn will turn out to be a play calling genius as well as a creative guru who makes plays that work. I like what he said about running the same plays while varying who is doing what and switching around receivers and sending portis out on patterns etc... Do you guys have any idea what confusing mess this will create for defenses? They'll need to play more zone than man to man and this will open up the pass game - especially for a WCO.

My prediction is that Zorn is going to make the NFL to like the arena league and we'll resemble the recent Rams (ironically). I think Zorn will be able to pull off what Sanders never was given the chance to try.

My big question is what happens in the rain and snow in December when we need to rely heavily on the run game - can we win key games then???

I get that but in the end all that's going to matter is how the team plays on the field.

I did say so far so good with him, but for me personally I want to at least see some live action before I can say whether he's doing a good job or not.