News and Notes: Zorn / Cerrato / Largent / Thomas

While it has become almost painful to watch the Redskins fumble through each and every week, it’s our job at THN to keep bringing you the news – no matter how ’embarrassing’ some of it might be.

Yesterday, Vinny Cerrato publicly endorsed coach Jim Zorn’s job stability.

Uh oh. How many times has a sports fan seen a team give a guy the old, ‘He’s here to stay’ speech, only to unceremoniously dump them in short order? Is this the case here? Or have the powers that be finally figured out that while Zorn hasn’t been enough of a part of the solution, he’s most certainly not all that is wrong with this franchise.

“Let me start by making a few things very perfectly clear: Jim Zorn is the head coach of the Washington Redskins, and will be for the rest of this season, and hopefully into the future,” Cerrato said.

How many days and dollars short is that press snippet? Public statements like this are quite often the proverbial kiss of death, but it bears mentioning that from a front office stand-point, you have to look at it this way – if the Skins are to fire Zorn now, and the team continues to spiral downwards – the F.O. will have ‘wasted’ their scapegoat. As it sits right now, they can still cast blame in Jim’s direction, for the way that this season and last have transpired; but if they fire him mid-season, they may lose that little convenience. They may have to answer for more than just the coach’s role in it all.

So are they serious? Does Jim really have until the end of the season?

Honestly – does anybody even care anymore? What Redskin fan is walking around thinking that this team is a contender? What Redskin fan is holding their head high and saying, ‘We’re still going to make the playoffs.’

There are some proud, blindly optimistic Redskin fans out there that like to sing that song regardless of the situation in D.C.; but the number of ‘believers’ seems to get smaller and smaller every week.

Most of the fans just watch with mouths agape, as Washington continue to provide reasons for a franchise to be ridiculed. As I wrote yesterday, sometimes you just have to marvel at what an absolute farce the Redskins manage to make of darn near everything – not just what they do, but the way in which they do it. There are an awful lot of fans out there that have the Raiders game (in December) ear-marked as our next, and perhaps only, other win this season; not that it’s a guarantee – just that it might be the only game left on the docket that we play a team with similar talent. Well actually they’re really just the only team left on the schedule that might be as dysfunctional as the Redskins.

There were also news stories this week that Cerrato had ‘spoken to’ Jim Zorn about the comments of his friend Steve Largent, who this week stated that Zorn thought about quitting, “It’s something that he thought about for a moment,” Largent said in an interview with the Washington Post. “But just in his heart, he wasn’t ready to give up. It’s just not something that he would ever do. He has too much integrity and class. And he’s a guy who just really loves the game. So I don’t think that was ever a real serious option for him.”

Zorn’s response was simply that, “That’s probably his thoughts on the process. I don’t really know what he said. Listen, friends, they kind of get fired up for friends. Well, I’m going to have to go bust him. I haven’t talked to him in a while.”

So is it really that you haven’t talked to him in a while Jim, or that you need to spin some damage control because the bosses told you to?

While both Cerrato and Zorn denied that the Redskins had issued the coach an ultimatum, there sure seems to be some validity to it, and note that Zorn did not actually say that what Largent said was untrue.

I’ll leave you with this ditty from Cerrato that will surely make everyone feel warm and fuzzy, “But the relationships internally within this organization quite frankly remain the same. Later [on Friday], (owner) Dan (Snyder) and I will have our weekly lunch with Jim, like we have always done, and like Dan has done for many years with the head coach to get a rundown on the upcoming game.”

Was that ‘get a rundown’ or ‘get run down’? Why does an owner need a run down on what a game plan is when he trusts the people that HE put into place? He doesn’t. To the uneducated, casual observer, he needs a run down because he’s a power mongering Napoleonic owner, with a sycophant at his side.

Until the news that starts coming out is all about how Snyder is going to STOP meddling in every way, shape or form, this team is just destined to keep repeating the same mistakes.

Thomas Leap Frogs Kelly

According to Jason Reid’s Redskins Insider this week, Devin Thomas is taking the number two receiver slot away from Malcolm Kelly. According to Zorn, “He was putting the effort in all over the place and earned the right to be out and he got the starting nod. That move is permanent just like when I gave the starting job to Malcolm. I got to make a change, though, if the production is not there.” Well geepers, if we start changing up every position that hasn’t been productive, do we have enough guys on the roster?

One thing is for sure – Thomas can’t really do less than Kelly, who has caught just 7 balls for 73 yards this season. Yes that’s a season total, not a game total.

But again, is this really anything more than change for the sake of change? According to former Redskin quarterback Joe Theismann, “they (Redskins) need to stop this shuffling system and trying to get everyone on the field. There’s no continuity and consistency in this offense.” He went on to add that, “It’s become so ugly and it’s become so desperate – you just don’t want the fans to throw their arms in the air, and say, to heck with these guys.”

Who else just threw their arms in the air, and said to heck with these guys?

Neither of ‘those guys’ is on the 53-man roster or coaching from the sidelines.