The Skins' new head coach, by the numbers...

[silverbear]

OK, so Danny Boy went maverick on us, and hired Jim Zorn to be the Skins' head coach, just weeks after signing Zorn as the offensive coordinator... what are we to make of this??

Well, as always with an "unknown" hire, there's a boom or bust factor at work here... Zorn may prove to be ultra-organized, and wind up becoming a pretty fair head coach...

However...

At this point, he has never even been an offensive coordinator, having worked the last TEN YEARS as a quarterbacks coach (for Detroit in 1998-2000, for Seattle since 2001)...

That by itself tells us something; in ten years, he was never promoted past quarterbacks coach, to offensive coordinator... no other team came looking to him to be their offensive coordinator, either...

To figure out why that might be, let's look at his teams' ranking in pass offense for the years he was in charge... over the last ten years, his pass offense's average ranking has been 14.4, about middle of the pack... only once in those ten years did his pass offense finish in the top 5, ranking 3rd in 2002... his teams put up top 10 finishes 3 other times, in 2007, 2003, and 1999... but they also ranked 27th in 2001, 24th in 2000, 20th in 2006, 19th in 1998...

So his passing offenses were generally not what you'd call high octane... even though he had a good quarterback while he was in Seattle, and a running back that for a while was perhaps the game's best...

None of this suggests that the Mad Midget chose well this time around... clearly, Danny Boy is hoping that Zorn will be a QB guru for Jason Campbell, but Campbell is no Matt Hasselbeck... and as head coach, Zorn will have less time to focus on his QB project than he would have as offensive coordinator... it will be interesting to see who the Skins tap to be the offensive coordinator now that Zorn has been bumped up...

 

[CF74]

Wow. Well the majority of wealthy people that gamble play craps so that's what ol Danny boy is doing, rolling the dice. The Commanders as a whole have a better unit than the lions so 9-7 or better is my guess...

 

[silverbear]

Wow. Well the majority of wealthy people that gamble play craps so that's what ol Danny boy is doing, rolling the dice. The Commanders as a whole have a better unit than the lions so 9-7 or better is my guess...

I dunno, that might be optimistic, given that the Skins will be implementing new systems on both sides of the ball... this will be especially hard on Jason Campbell, who already has a bit of a reputation for needing a lot of time to get a new system down...

 

[hendog]

Any guess on their OC?

 

[Cowboy4ever]

I dunno, that might be optimistic, given that the Skins will be implementing new systems on both sides of the ball... this will be especially hard on Jason Campbell, who already has a bit of a reputation for needing a lot of time to get a new system down...

I don't know about that in regards to Campbell. I would think he is one of the few guys around that has learned how to adapt to a new scheme fairly quickly. Last year was the first time he has had the same OC for 2 years in a row since HS. His 4 years at AU, they had a different OC every year.

Having said that.. I don't think JC is that good of a QB to begin with. But i doubt it has anything to do with the scheme. He will make a horrible QB in the WCO. Touch and reading D's has never been his strong suit,, which is what makes a WCO work.

With zorn and Jc.. i doubt they break .500 mark next season.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

To be fair...

I don't know how much of the Seattle Passing game you could lay on his feet, since as you noted, he was never the OC. He was only the QB coach.

Now...I don't know how many QB coaches you could say controlled the Offensive Game planning, WRs, TEs, RBs or OL.

So...not sure how looking at those stats really applies to Zorn.

Second. Concerning the Defense.

I doubt the defense will change dramatically. I have a feeling it will be a mix of what they had under Williams and a few tweaks by the new DC.

Remember the new DC (Blache sp?) was with the team under Williams. The defense under williams was pretty good for the most part.

So I am not sure it will change dramatically. Surely not as much as it would change on the offensive side of the ball if the new HC wants to install a WCO.

 

[jackrussell]

OK, so Danny Boy went maverick on us, and hired Jim Zorn to be the Skins' head coach, just weeks after signing Zorn as the offensive coordinator... what are we to make of this??

That Danny was getting really nervous as he was going alphabetically?

 

[L-O-Jete]

That Danny was getting really nervous as he was going alphabetically?

 

[Yeagermeister]

That Danny was getting really nervous as he was going alphabetically?

Yeah he called me and I told him I was over qualified

 

[AmishGangsta]

Kind of a similar to when Andy Reid first was hired by the Eagles -- except he's being inherited a team that went to the playoffs.

"The quality of Reid's work with the Packers attracted considerable notice throughout the league, leading to his being hired as the head coach of the Eagles on January 11, 1999. At the time, many in the local media in Philadelphia criticized the hiring, citing the availability of other candidates who had past records of success as head coaches. The Eagles, under former coach Ray Rhodes, finished in a three-way tie for the NFL's worst record at 3-13 the season before he took over. They improved two games in 1999 to finish at 5-11 (including the team's first road victory in 19 games, a 20-16 win over the Bears at Chicago on October 17, which was the first time the Philadelphia franchise had won an away game over the Bears since 1933). In 2000, the Eagles reached the playoffs after posting an 11-5 regular-season record."

Hopefully if he does bad in his first year, Snyder won't send him packing.
Snyder claims the one thing he learned from Joe Gibbs is patience, well we'll see.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

None of this suggests that the Mad Midget chose well this time around... clearly, Danny Boy is hoping that Zorn will be a QB guru for Jason Campbell, but Campbell is no Matt Hasselbeck... and as head coach, Zorn will have less time to focus on his QB project than he would have as offensive coordinator... it will be interesting to see who the Skins tap to be the offensive coordinator now that Zorn has been bumped up...

If reports are correct that Snyder never looked at Pete Carroll, then I've got another thought on this.

Snyder is leveraged to the tilt with the corporations he owns. With Six Flags going down the tubes and possibly being on the verge of bankruptcy, financial analysts have said that they would be surprised if Snyder spent a lot of money on the Skins this offseason due to the financial difficulties.

Every HC he's looked at probably didn't have a high price tag. He probably wanted Fassel because he's a name, with experience that would come cheap. But the negative fan reaction made him realize that he made a mistake. Then he probably wanted Spagnuolo, but Spags turned him down and Zorn was his hire since he couldn't go with Fassel and Zorn was also a cheap hire.





YAKUZA

 

[silverbear]

I don't know about that in regards to Campbell. I would think he is one of the few guys around that has learned how to adapt to a new scheme fairly quickly.

Actually, his reputation is the exact opposite... one opposing defensive coordinator when Campbell was still playing at Auburn said that AU had to run a "high school offense" for Campbell...

 

[silverbear]

Kind of a similar to when Andy Reid first was hired by the Eagles -- except he's being inherited a team that went to the playoffs.

Reid was the Pack's assistant head coach when he came to Philly, which is somewhat higher up the food chain than quarterbacks coach...