D.C. Examiner: Zorn's job in jeopardy? (not so fast he's coming back)

Even if we lose out and go 7-9, Zorn still should have a job next year. This is stupid, even as great a coach JG is, he went 6-10 his first year back, 8-8 (albeit after an 0-5 start) in his first year. Give Zorn some time, the personnel the JG put in place may be wrong for Zorn's offense. To call the offensive line bad is an understatement, Blache being a defensive line coach before should be able to get some pressure--another problem. If Clinton has such a big mouth, he deserves to be benched, he's injured no point in putting an early end to his career. We saw glimpses of what Devin Thomas can do--catch, so its not that bad. Remember when we fired Marty early? I thinks its too early to be calling for Zorn's head, give him at least another year if not more... great teams aren't born overnight or over an offseason... it takes time!

good post!

If we tank these last 3 games I can honestly see a change, and it wouldn't surprise me at all especially if he's lost the locker room. The honeymoon is indeed over, last week kinda cemented it for me personally. The offense can't score and the protection schemes are a joke. I'm tired of it.

I think a better move, PERHAPS, is getting an o-line coach who knows this kind of West coast system. I love Buges, but this is not his style, and the hybrid WC-Gibbs thing seems not to be working.

Still, if our players can't block on pass pro, I'm not sure what Zorn (or anyone) can really do. I've seen lots of failed one-on-one matchups as well as confusion.

If we tank these last 3 games I can honestly see a change, and it wouldn't surprise me at all especially if he's lost the locker room. The honeymoon is indeed over, last week kinda cemented it for me personally. The offense can't score and the protection schemes are a joke. I'm tired of it.

From hip hip hooray to get the eff outta the way in such a short time. It's amazing how quickly fortunes change in the NFL. It's gotta be the most unforgiving (as far as performance) pro sports league around.

I'm tired of it too. If we don't fire Zorn, we need to hire an O-line coach who has worked with this kind of offense before. Maybe part of the reason we haven't drafted too many OL since Gibbs V2.0 is because Bugel had a track record of turning trash into gold. That's obviously not really the case anymore.

If we lose to Cincy this weekend, we will also lose to San Fran and Philly. From 6-2 to 7-9. That's what the Lions did last season.

If we tank these last 3 games I can honestly see a change, and it wouldn't surprise me at all especially if he's lost the locker room. The honeymoon is indeed over, last week kinda cemented it for me personally. The offense can't score and the protection schemes are a joke. I'm tired of it.

Well if we totally tank and mail it in and the team quits then yeah, that would be a problem. But this losing streak has been to teams who are not only better than us, but are matchup nightmares. While the playoffs are a stretch at this point, a dominating performance against the Bengals and solid showings against the Eagles and Niners would do a lot to calm everyone down.

The biggest thing that worries me is the way people seem to be turning on each other, from the coach down. Campbell's recent article arguing basically that it ain't my fault was troubling. Zorn's well discussed refusal to take any blame is more troubling. This isn't like Williams calling out Arch in film meetings. Although people will have issues invariably you have to be able to keep it in the bunker. And when people start delegating blame in the media that's a recipe for an unraveling. And that's what has me most worried.

I don't see the run game as the issue. Getting killed week after week by the same blitzes tells me it's a pass pro issue, mainly due to the scheme. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out how to scheme for an overload blitz. Right now Zorn seems to be either stumped over trying to stop it or he's flat out ignoring that it's an issue. JC has taken some wicked shots over the past few weeks. I swear it's Spurrier/Ramsey all over again.

Zorn seems to be stubbornly sticking to a base 5 guy protection scheme and demanding that his o-line learn to block. Gibbs would routinely keep 8 guys in to block and send 2 guys out on routes. I think the o-line got spoiled.

Matty, in the nearly ten years that we've been conversing on the internet, these are the gloomiest couple of posts I've ever read from you. They are well-founded though.

I agree with you. If things start falling apart in the locker room and they can't finish better than 2-1 during this last stretch, the Jim Zorn experiment could be done for.

I don't see the run game as the issue. Getting killed week after week by the same blitzes tells me it's a pass pro issue, mainly due to the scheme. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out how to scheme for an overload blitz. Right now Zorn seems to be either stumped over trying to stop it or he's flat out ignoring that it's an issue. JC has taken some wicked shots over the past few weeks. I swear it's Spurrier/Ramsey all over again.
You're defintely right, it's a pass-pro issue....but the first INT, Samuels just got beat. As a coach how do you account for that, you have a Pro Bowl LT out there, you have to believe he'll win that battle. Are you going to hold a back or TE in with Samuels? You do that, and now what do you do to help Jansen, who you know is struggling. What about anything coming up the gut? One of the overload blitz sacks was a BAD line call by Kendall, he's pointing down and there's 3 guys from Samuels out, at the snap he goes down to help Rabach with no one anywhere near his A gap. How is that Zorn's fault? Let's not forget Zorn is the HC, but Buges should have fixed the pass-pro issues if they were a scheme issue. We've got an OL that's struggling terribly and no scheme in the world can fix that. Bad OL = Poor offensive production.

And since teams know we can't pass, say hello to 8 & 9 man fronts....goodbye run game.

So much for Gibbs bringing stability back to the organization. That notion didn't last too long.