SkinsFTW Posted September 26, 2009 Share Posted September 26, 2009 It's clear that Jason Campbell transforms into Heath Shuler when we get in the red zone. Zorn is being smart by playing it safe and at least getting us a field goal. I argue the exact opposite. If he's that bad then get him off the field. Settling for field goals isn't going to win us any games against good teams. Even the 1985 Bears and 2000 Ravens, teams everyone assumes won it all ONLY because of their defense, even those teams scored a lot of points at times. Especially the Bears, they were 2nd in the league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieselPwr44 Posted September 26, 2009 Share Posted September 26, 2009 I agree with the OP. Every Super Bowl team in this league's history always had something that they've done exceptionally well. Something they could hang their hat on. What is that on this squad? Joe Gibbs would find his offense drifting and would make the statement "We need to get back to Redskins Football " and fans immediately knew what that meant. If Zorn were to say that,would we know what that meant? Would he? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted September 26, 2009 Author Share Posted September 26, 2009 Actually, after Sellers dropped the ball he called a different play, it was however a passing play. That was the 3rd down pass to ARE. I think your time of events is muddled. He spoke about not being able to pass for a TD near the end of the game after missing on DT's play, MS's play, ARE's play, and the completely inappropriate HB pass to Cooley (not in order, of course).I wouldnt argue with him on running and going for 2 4th downs at the end of the game. 1. It worked. 2. It would not have changed things much from kicking the field goal and kicking off, EXCEPT, you would have to kick off. As far as play calling, I completely disagree. Zorn is very open to change. More than most. I also see where that will serve us well this season. I don't see where we're going to get better by bailing now, much less at the end of the season. Your opening premise in this thread is that we should fire Zorn now. So really, what would you do. You've offered up part A, fire Zorn, even part B, implement Bugel. What's part C of this plan? Will we be contending by the end of 2010? The point of what Zorn said during the game was because of Sellers not catching the ball he would just run it instead. That's craziness. Going for it on fourth against a team down 2 with no time outs is equally craziness. But, again, even if one grants the first was not sheer lunacy, the second was, as was calling a sweep to even give the clock ANY chance of stopping, thought Betts should have put butt down, no doubt. What I do is irrelevant. What WE do now is. Zorn is open to changing calls. I didn't say he wasn't. I said he doesn't know what that means. He does a bit of this, a dabble of that, some of this, litle of that and in the end, it is just a messy mix of nothing. We aren't anything because we don't do anything in particular all that well except one thing we do too little of. Nothing builds off itself. There rarely seems a plan. Take the ARE pass. To run that play you have to set it up with five or six reverse action plays earlier. You have to run at least one reverse. And it has to be mildly successful. You have to have lots of action away from the play, just fakes. You have to get the defense honoring that action. Then you tip them back on their heels. The play itself is fine. The timing shows no actual feel for calling it. That lack is a major portion of why the team operates so fitfully. I have no illusions that unless the team forms an identity around what skill sets the players do have, it'll remain as spotty and uncertain as today for as long as that is the thing that defines us. And, somewhat shockingly, that doesn't preclude us from "contending" for the playoffs. Again, we have enough talent and a soft enough early schedule to be interesting. We're not a bad team. We just lack any identity and the lack of bad isn't on Zorn. The lack of identity is. It wouldn't get worse with Bugel save he'll embrace an identity we can't be, like Gibbs did, but you'll at least know what you are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Birdlives Posted September 26, 2009 Share Posted September 26, 2009 The lack of identity is. It wouldn't get worse with Bugel save he'll embrace an identity we can't be, like Gibbs did, but you'll at least know what you are. I dont quote larger chunks of what you're saying because I dont disagree. Playcalling, identity, you make valid points. We agree to disagree. I think Zorn is finding his identity and developing what he wants to be. I see changes in him from last year that I view as positive. I think of Zorn as coming from a place where he by lack of experience has to be given time to grow in the job. We all know where he came from, he's smart enough to get it, he just needs time. Patience, consistency. It needs to happen. Unfortunately its not going to happen. Snyder would've said something by now. A vote of confidence would've been issued. Clearly Zorn's head is on the chopping block already. I honestly don't know how anyone can do their job with an axe on their neck. That probably explains more than anything his erratic job performance. Nevertheless, you fail to answer the final question. You fire Zorn. You put in Bugel (assuming he'll go). Then what? Who are you looking at as the next top dog? The fresh young coordinator? The next big thing? These guys have come in before and don't seem to be given time to develop. That leads you to the heavy hitters. Is it Cowher? Holmgren? Do you honestly believe guys like that are going to put up with our owner? We've gone down that road as well. Im just not seeing it. Snyder is burning through coaches too fast. 5 in 10 years! Listen to any national NFL show and the guys in the know speak of DC as a coach killing environment. They're not coming up with this stuff on their own, its in the air. Its part of the convo in the inner circles. We kick out Zorn before the end of year two, heck even after year two and no one will want to come in without wholesale changes that Snyder just isn't going to make. So where does that leave us, Art? You give us the easy part: fire Zorn, what about the hard part, rebuilding this team yet again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsFTW Posted September 26, 2009 Share Posted September 26, 2009 Dude, you have to know, the revolving door stops for no one not named Gibbs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tr1 Posted September 26, 2009 Share Posted September 26, 2009 Maybe Jason Garrett. The magic is gone for the red head. There's a reason he's not a HC this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Full Monty Posted September 26, 2009 Share Posted September 26, 2009 what still makes no sense is that zorn was brought here to run a WCO.....and most of the time it doesnt look like were running a WCO. i wonder what offense zorn is actually running most of the time. Marty's. And where the hell is the fade route in the endzone? Where's the bootlegs? We should slaughtering people on our PA bootlegs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsHokieFan Posted September 26, 2009 Share Posted September 26, 2009 Art's OP is very similar to what I wrote on a Virginia Tech board about the VT offense. The lack of an identity. The lack of being able to do a few things, very very well. The lack of bread and butter plays. Both my teams have Chinese fire drill offenses. They try and be something they are not, which is they try and be everything. Its failed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianm23 Posted September 26, 2009 Share Posted September 26, 2009 I think Cowher is Carolina's next coach. This is exactly what I believe. I think he'll bypass all openings except the Panthers one, which will definitely be opening soon. I dont' see them beating the Boys this monday so that'll be a 0-3 start. You guys think Zorn is on a hot seat, it's not hotter than John Fox and Wade Phillip's seats. Those seats are blazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceviker Posted September 27, 2009 Share Posted September 27, 2009 When I'm upset with my favorite football team, I typically don't boo. I just get angry and quiet. I close my eyes and imagine what it would be like to be happy, when the guys leading or playing for my team made me happy. I don't know what sentiment there is after the Rams game. I know my own.And here it is. Fire Jim Zorn. I haven't said those words about a Redskins coach since 0-5 under Marty. After that loss to Dallas in the most dreadful games ever I knew Marty was done. That team rallied and improved, but did so in spite of Marty. They got together as a team and said, "Forget the coach. Play for us." Such a rallying works once. Marty was done once that happened. Zorn is probably liked by more players so they won't rebel against him, though, it's likely few players respect him overly much. I didn't think we should have fired Norv, being the last on that bandwagon. I thought Spurrier would be given another year, one I knew we'd dread. Spurrier and Zorn are similar in some ways. What happened Sunday was the end of Zorn. Only a miracle alters that. A miracle is certainly possible. We'll get to that in a moment. For now we discuss why Zorn's done. The team has taken on his identity. If Zorn's identity was great, the team would be. Zorn's identity is part desperate, part unfocused and entirely uncertain. Thus, the team plays without focus, with desperation and without real identity. One touchdown is on a fake field goal. Another touchdown try is on a halfback pass by the end zone. He goes for it on fourth and 1 TWICE with the team up by 2 late in a game. It's Week 2 of Season 2. That's desperate. It's the mark of desperation. He doesn't think the team can score any other way. The players don't believe he can get them in the end zone any other way. It reeks of a lack of professionalism or clue. It reeks of Zorn, a man I actually like. This team is a West Coast Offense. Kinda. Not really. We're a power running offense. Sometimes, not really. We're a spread-em-out, shotgun team. Here and there. Not really. We're unpredictible, trick play guys, once in a while and without ever setting it up well. We want to hit them deep, we just don't complete. We don't do anything offensively because we do not stand for anything offensively. We treat drives like Chinese drip torture. Long, time-consuming, unproductive and ultimately ineffective. I've never seen a team capable of so many long drives that do nothing, including never tiring out the other team. At least with Spurrier it was clear he had no way to adjust to what other teams were doing, so he would TRY to find a new identity every few weeks when the one play he found that worked got taken away. With Zorn, he's found things that work, but can't make himself keep doing it. The Redskins are, plainly, TO EVERYONE, built to be a spread offense run out of the shot gun. There IS a reason Daniel and Colt appealed late in the draft or in free agency. Our players are built for that. Our line is built for that. Our QB is built for it. And it actually works. But, Zorn can't embrace it as us. It'll work three times, then he'll slam an off-tackle play three more to punt. He'll force Campbell to do play action, which Campbell is about the weakest anyone has ever seen at doing, yet, it's there. Good play. Another. Then two tight ends and nothing. We're not smash mouth. We're not big enough. We're not strong enough. We can't do it. We could MAYBE do it later in games if we ever bothered to score early. But in Zorn you have a fundamentally normal, ball-control coach, who can never break out of his mold to adopt the mold of his players. This team isn't moribund as Marty's was. It has some interesting things going for it. Some positives about how it performs. You can see it's maybe, kind of, close to being something. But the total lack of explosion in the offense is stunning. Even on a drive with a good big play, we still manage 10 others. It boggles the mind. If we were efficient and scored with such an offense we'd be thrilled. It's the kind of demoralizing, can't-get-them-off, offense that crushes the will of teams. It does require touchdowns and no mistakes. These are two things we're not actually able to do or limit. Defensively it's not been great. It's been fine. This team can win with that defense, though it is not elite right now and with Hall's inability to close and tackle, won't be. It's really the offense that defines us and the offense is Zorn's definition of us The miracle requires he stop trying to be a little bit of everything and start being the only thing his team does well. Perfect it. Embrace it. Exist AS it. Make it what other teams KNOW you'll do. And then, add something else in. Get good at something. Make your players know that's who you are. Make everyone know that's who you are. Only doing that solves the one key problem we have. We're everything. Which is why we score nothing. Our players have no heart. Ultimately, that's the coach's responsability. I agree with you, Art, albeit I didn't agree last week. I like Zorn as a person and a OC even, just not as a coach. And at this point - Zorn must be let go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsFTW Posted September 28, 2009 Share Posted September 28, 2009 Our players have no heart. Ultimately, that's the coach's responsability. I agree with you, Art, albeit I didn't agree last week. I like Zorn as a person and a OC even, just not as a coach. And at this point - Zorn must be let go. Thats it. When you are called out by the fans, your own fans, as a team, as a coach, as individual players, then called out by the media who were 50% picking the other team to win, isn't that when you prove them all wrong and run up 35-50 on a bad team that has lost 19 games in a row? To do the exact opposite would tell me the coach needs to go now and the new one should probably look into starting some of the young guys like Mitchell, Mason, Alridge, etc. Whoever. Zorn being fired right now is an absolute no brainer move. This isn't an "Any Given Sunday" type of loss. The asses got handed out. By a team that hasn't won a single game since about the same time Sean Taylor was killed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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