Zorn Remains Dignified

As Redskin fans spend the week looking for a nice deep hole to stick their head in and hide, Jim Zorn suffered the dubious distinction of having to hold a Monday Press Conference and explain the state of the team to the media. Somehow, he did so with grace and dignity.

When you ask a guy to get in front of a ravenous group of media members, and answer questions that he can’t possibly answer, there’s just something kind of sadly pathetic about it.

I thought it bore mentioning that while the burgundy and gold faithful are standing with hands on hips, and bags on heads, and trying to figure out how to ‘fix’ things like personnel issues and coaching issues – why not also take a look at the way this organization conducts business.

Zorn’s latest press conference was just another example of the travesty that this franchise has become. Fans of other teams, and so called experts, love to mock the Redskins because frankly, they make it so darn easy. In what other line of work does the guy being replaced have to give a press conference announcing that he has basically been stripped of the bulk of his duties?

How is this not an announcement for Vinny Cerrato to make himself? It’s hard to fathom that you can take a brutal situation like switching up play callers mid-season, and make it even worse, by the way you go about it.

Good for Jim Zorn, for not caving and just saying, ‘I quit,’ like I’m sure the ‘brain’ trust was hoping for. If I was Zorn, I’d make them fire me and get that whole pay check too.

Perhaps the worst part about it is that Redskin fans have been so oppressed by the Redskins propaganda wheel, that they’re often numb to the idiocy of it all. There are a massive amount of fans that totally eat the hype and are completely oblivious to the deep state of malaise that this franchise has entered into. They figure that the news outlets publish nothing but over-sensationalized hate mongering, which is often true unfortunately, but they make the incorrect assumption that if the media are wrong – then the organization must be right.

I’m constantly stunned at the laziness of the Washington media. They spend so much time creating mountains out of molehills, that they never seem to actually notice the REAL mountains in front of them. It seems that often they would rather over-hype a story that has no real legs, then go out and find something of real substance.

And oh… are there ever a lot of real bones to pick out there, if you look a little deeper. Just listen to what some former Redskins are starting to say about organizational SNAFUs on news shows all around town. Perhaps more interestingly, get some face time with former players and listen to the kinds of things that they say ‘off the record’ if you really want to start getting to the meat of things.

Some of the stories are stunning, and I have to think that if the Washington media is looking to truly dig up some dirt, then they have to consider downgrading the sensationalism, in order for the magnitude of the REAL dirt, to be realized. Redskin fans are so inundated with venomous press, that they’re desensitized to it. It’s comical, and yet depressing to me that the Redskin faithful are SO faithful that they really do line up like lambs at the slaughter. Open your eyes and pay attention to what’s going on. It’s a horror show.

And it’s worth noting here that a lot more Redskin fans ARE standing up and taking notice. A lot of Redskin fans are plain fed up. A lot of Redskin fans have reached the end of their proverbial ropes.

It’s hard to look at it as a ‘good’ thing that things have sunk so low, but maybe it was necessary for real change to be brought about. It’s a lot harder for the organization to put a public ‘band-aid’ on things, when a lot of Redskin fans see gaping wounds.

That’s a good thing.

For the last decade, Redskin fans have accepted wholesale changes and mediocrity as being part of the fabric of this once proud franchise. There is an entire generation of Redskin fans that have never experienced any degree of success from their favorite team. We’ve watched presidents, de facto GMs, coaches, and players roll in and roll out to the point that the ONLY constant, is change.

And it hasn’t worked at all.

As if Monday’s press conference wasn’t enough of an indignity for Zorn, the team spent the rest of the week emasculating him further by completely taking him out of the play-calling process. According to a witty D.C. Sports Bog today, Dan Steinburg says that emasculate, “seems to be the metaphor of the week, as if the male sexual organ were created specifically in order to call go routes and halfback options from the sidelines.”

So Sherm Lewis will sit in the press box and call plays down to Sherm Smith on the sideline, who will then call them on to the field… while Zorn “listens in” from his headset. Sounds healthy doesn’t it? Apparently the male sexual organ was actually created to call go routes and halfback options from the press box, or maybe even the owner’s box.

Am I the only one that still finds it truly amazing that the Redskins continually find some way to not only get worse, but to come off as more and more dysfunctional?

Other Notes:

In the Sports Bog that I link to above, there’s a scathing quote about Dan Snyder from former Hog Mark Schlereth:

“You know what, because he’s a billionaire doesn’t mean that he knows anything about football. Guess what, Donald Trump is a billionaire, and he ran the USFL right into the ground….It doesn’t mean that he’s not smart. He’s an intelligent guy, he knows how to make money, he knows how to do that, but sometimes common sense and business things don’t apply to the National Football League. It’s a different world. And you think that you can take what you’ve learned from your business acumen into that game, it’s a different business, it’s a different world….Your weakness as an owner is that you don’t know enough about this game. You think you know enough, but you don’t know enough, so quit meddling in it. Hire people that know the game.”

That pretty much sums up the thoughts of a ton of Redskin fans, doesn’t it?