Jim Zorn deserved better

The last of a thousand cuts came sometime between 2:15 Monday morning, when Jim Zorn arrived back at Redskins Park from San Diego, and 4:43, when he was accompanied to his car by a member of the team staff. In the wee small hours of the morning, Zorn was finally, mercifully fired.
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So now, presumably, it’s Mike Shanahan’s turn on the carousel. He’ll be the seventh man to hold the job under owner Dan Snyder in 11 years. Coach of the Redskins has roughly the life expectancy of a human cannonball — but without the fun — so we’ll soon see what Shanahan’s made of, see whether he and new GM Bruce Allen can wrest control of this foundering ship from the helm in the owner’s box.

But for now, all we know is that Zorn’s torment is over. He finishes his two seasons — a miraculous achievement in and of itself — with a 12-20 record, including Sunday’s deflating 23-20 loss to the second-string, playoff-bound Chargers, who happen to be coached by one of the men whom Dan Snyder has already thrown under the bus, Norv Turner. If Turner doesn’t skip into work every day, buss everyone on the cheek and thank his Maker for getting him out of Ashburn, then he’s nuts.

Everyone knows Zorn’s story by now: hired two years ago as an offensive coordinator, then given the head coaching job by default, a 6-2 start and 2-6 finish in 2008, and then the humiliation of this 4-12 season, during which he was stripped of his play-calling duties and most of his offensive control. Then the team interviewed one of his assistants for his job — while he was still in it.

Earlier this season I compared the torture of Zorn to the William Wallace death scene in “Braveheart,” but perhaps that was too gentle a disembowelment. Now I’m thinking more of “Saw VII.”

Through all of this, Zorn conducted himself with class. (If only that were contagious, and spread through Redskins Park like a particularly virulent strain of H1N1.) Not only did Zorn take the high road for all of this horrible season, he cleaned up litter alongside it in his spare time. He had an E-ZPass for the high road. He owned the high road.

But of course, that doesn’t win football games. Zorn didn’t always effectively use the clock and his timeouts. Some of his play-calling was questionable, and some decisions were just bad. When he needed to light a fire under the team in the locker room, he turned to 69-year-old Joe Bugel to do it. Not that Buges isn’t overqualified for the role, but sometimes the head coach needs to throw the bats in the shower, so to speak.

The only player I saw him get annoyed with publicly was Jason Campbell, after the quarterback dared complain — for the only time this season — about the number of hits he was taking and the risk to his career. That didn’t sit well with Zorn, who twice was sacked 44 times in a season. I disagreed with him on that point: Shouldn’t you want better for the next generation? Just because you went through it, why should Campbell? I grew up without car seats and child locks, but I wouldn’t toss my kid in the back seat of my car or let him juggle knives in the kitchen.

And yet he let Albert Haynesworth play after coming late to practice, getting sent home, then carping and complaining about his coaches. It seemed Zorn held Campbell to a different standard, and that’s never a good idea when you’re dealing with 53 men. In fact, that attitude was surprisingly old school. New Age Zorn was seldom old school. Witness the Lonesome Polecat. Twice.

We won’t see the Lonesome Polecat again, I’m guessing, from the Washington Redskins. We probably won’t see another Jim Zorn either.

By Tracee Hamilton

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