Several months ago, at the end of baseball season, I remarked on the incredible strides the Washington Nationals had made over the course of their season, ending with a record certainly not "historically bad", if not reaching "good".
Well this weekend DC's other storied sports franchise, the Washington Redskins, hired an unknown coach to take over the head coaching duties from the immortal Joe Gibbs. Gibbs resigned a month ago, leaving the owner, Mr. Daniel Synder (henceforth referred to as "The Danny," "Snyderman," or "Napoleon") without a coach. Now, Napoleon tends to get all sorts of weird personnel ideas in his head, and usually throws money at whoever he wants until the player or coach succumbs to the power of his own greed. By such processes have arrived numerous over-the-hill players (particularly quaterbacks), a horrendously awful college coach whose main motivational technique was throwing his visor, and Deion Sanders, in a category all his own.
So all expected that The Danny, when searching for a new coach, would hire as big a name as was available, regardless of whether any of the players or existing coaches wanted to play or work for him. Fortunately for all of us, the big names wanted nothing to do with the Redskins. Bill Cowher, despite certainly being offered a pile of money as huge as Snyderman's ego, claimed that he was happy working in TV and wasn't ready to return to coaching. Pete "Southern California is my Xanadu" Carroll didn't want to leave the fawning legions of USC. And Jim Mora just had too much sense. So Napoleon finally had to check his ego at the door and hire as his head coach a guy he had hired to be an assistant two weeks before.
Now to bring this post full circle, despite the fact that this wasn't what he wanted, Snyder has almost perfectly replicated the circumstances that allowed the Nationals to exceed all expectations last year. The Nats decided that instead of going out and getting someone flashy, they would find a young, smart baseball man that the team could build an identity around. Coincidentally, that man, Manny Acta, also happened to be a great teacher with an ability to connect with his players. Jim Zorn, the new Skins coach, fits that same model.
The Nats did it intentionally, and the Skins as a last resort, but maybe The Danny has learned something from not getting what he wanted. Of course, nobody knows how Coach Zorn will eventually perform, but if the example of the Nationals is any indication, good times for the Skins may still be ahead.
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I don't know anything about Zorn, so I'll withhold judgment. I did notice that he said he would pretty much "leave the defense alone." Couldn't Gregg Williams have done that? Will they be so much better on offense so as to justify blowing it up?
And remember, this was a playoff team last year. If they have the type of season the Nats had, it will be considered a huge disaster.
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