Is Zorn too mellow?
The Washington Redskins say all of the right things. When players are asked about their poor record they point the finger at themselves. It’s their execution, they say. The problem is their mistakes, not the coaching, not the distractions, not anything external.
They do not throw their coaches under the bus (that task is left to upper management). The defense doesn’t point fingers at the offense for its lack of productivity—not that they have any right to after giving up multiple long scoring plays over the past two games. Nobody complains about Jason Campbell’s struggles or about Clinton Portis’ lack of burst.
Nobody should expect any awards for such behavior. This is a veteran team, the oldest in the league, and that is what veterans should do.
But it’s one thing to talk like a veteran team; it’s another to walk the walk of such a group. And, as chronicled here, they went out yesterday and made a bunch of dumb mistakes in the first half and found themselves staring at the wrong end of a 24-3 score.
The second half was a different story. They looked like a totally different team in the third quarter and outscored the Falcons 14-7 in the second half. After giving up five sacks on the first half they surrendered none in the second. The Redskins gained 243 yards of offense in the second half after they had mustered just 69 in the first (that first-half total negated by 69 yards in penalties).
So, what happened in between the dismal first half and an NFL-caliber performance in the final 30 minutes? Some good, old fashioned tongue lashings.
Jim Zorn was visibly agitated and he “went off” according to some players. Offensive line coach Joe Bugel was the most vocal. By several accounts, he laid into his charges at halftime.
“He just challenged us to do our job,” Derrick Dockery said. “We had to man up.”
Bugel told them to “step up, be a man, do your job, block the man in front of you and go to work,” Casey Rabach said.
The question that begs to be asked here is why did it take being yelled at by your 69-year-old position coach to figure out that they needed to man up? They talk the subject of needing to execute better to death.
They had two weeks prior to this game to decide that they needed to step up. Why wait until it is 30 minutes too late?
Zorn has talked about seeing no need to yell at grown men to get them to do their jobs. Maybe he might want to try it. Evidently, it works.
But maybe the time to try it is before the game. Zorn has remained the same throughout the team’s recent struggles and while it’s admirable that he has maintained his composure perhaps he needs to lose it sometimes.
He can pick the time—during practice, while watching films, before games.
Just sometime prior to being down by three touchdowns.
