The Jim Zorn Effect
If you would’ve asked any Redskins fan at the midway mark of the 2007 NFL season who would be the team’s head coach in 2008, nobody would’ve guessed Jim Zorn.
And no one in the NFL would’ve guessed that eight games into the 2008 NFL season, the Washington Redskins would be a contender for the NFC championship, have several Pro Bowl caliber players, and that the man who replaced Joe “Hard Fought” Gibbs would be the King of Coaching Sound Bytes.
No profanity, no veins bulging out of his neck, just good old fashion cheers from World War II,
and the question that usually precedes someone using the Heimlich Maneuver.
And Zorn is exactly what Washington needed. A coach with fresh ideas, willing to take himself lightly, but serious enough to know how much his success means to the city, and how he can harness the talent available to him. His loose approach has turned loose Clinton Portis, and established control for Jason Campbell. Maybe not MVP-like control, but enough control that defenses must prepare for him just as much as they key on Portis.
If one man can be this unexpected, and his team can perform this unexpectedly, there’s no telling what heights they can reach, or what mountains they can climb. With mountainbikes.
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