Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Zorn to receivers: "F*** the bulls***"

Though met with raised eyebrows at the time, the decision to hire Jim Zorn as head coach of the Redskins in beginning to look more and more like the right one. This has nothing to with the team winning its first pre-season game, or the fact that Zorn sounds like an alien overlord from a bad sci-fi movie (ALL HAIL ZORN!!! RULER OF THE KINGDOM OF THE SEVEN SUNS!).

I was very impressed when I saw this:
Washington Redskins Coach Jim Zorn chided Malcolm Kelly and Devin Thomas yesterday for their lack of conditioning and said he anticipates the injured rookie wide receivers will have a hard time having an impact on the offense early this season...

"I've had this happen in other places I've coached, and it's very difficult," Zorn said of young wide receivers missing training camp time. "When you interview them, 'It's going to be easy.' They're going to walk around and go: 'This is nothing. I'll get this right away.' But once they get out there and they really see what they have to do and how exact they have to be and the speed at which they have to play and the intensity -- then I think they'll see. Now, can we get them in and work them in? Yes. Will they get up to speed? Yes. But this is valuable time."

Not only is it great to see Zorn lighting a fire under these two rookies, but this is really a new side of him that no one really knew or thought was there. He comes off very quiet and unassuming, almost as much of a "Nervous Nellie" type as his predecessor, Joe Gibbs. But on the sidelines this past Sunday, Zorn was calm, collected and almost emotionless, looking every bit the part of NFL head coach. I wonder if they teach Holmgren & co. to look like that as part of the West Coast offense?

Now, I'm not flying off the deep end. As refreshing as it was to see Zorn's offense run smoothly, we must take into account that it came against an Indianapolis Colts team playing virtually no starters and who also have five pre-season games, so it's not like players are really breaking their backs for that first game (especially on defense). However, Zorn is taking major steps to reassuring me that he might have been the right choice after all. While I'm not as worried he'll be a liability as I was before, let's see him keep up the good work as we approach that September 4th opener against the reigning champs.

1 comment:

  1. I saw this and was equally excited, and seeing the replay of sunday night's game was cool cause he really looked like a coach.

    Nothing better than rookies coming in to camp so out of shape that they injure themselves. Oh well, at least they weren't getting goosed up and demanding trades.

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