GO FOR 2

You’ve heard the weirdest stat of the year, right? Every team the Redskins have played was winless coming into the game…now 3 of them aren’t. This wasn’t a big deal in week 1 (when everybody was winless) or week 2…but now we’re almost half way through the season here … this is getting really disturbing. Luckily for the ‘Skins that streak stops here, next week’s opponent, Philadelphia, is kind enough not to bring a winless schedule into the game.

Who else is to blame? We'll figure out once we're through with you. (Photo Courtesy of Keith Allison, Flickr CCL)

So, weird statistics aside, this team sucks. There, I came out and said it. The offensive line is allowing way too much pressure inside, and is producing average run-blocking at best. Jason Campbell is starting to look a lot like JaMarcus Russell – he can heave the ball around the field, but he can’t hit anything with it. Back-up QB Todd Collins apparently had one good pass left in him, and he used it up on his first play in the game. And head coach Jim Zorn, who is taking too much of the blame, still deserves a lot of the blame. Zorn’s play calling has been questionable, his players have no fire or urgency at all, and the man just looks flat-out defeated at every press conference. The only unit you can’t really blame here is there defense, of course, while they’ve been solid they haven’t been dynamic. The D isn’t scoring, isn’t creating a lot of turnovers, and the fact that they’re holding opponent’s point totals low clearly doesn’t matter.

So what’s the next step? Jim Zorn was just stripped of his play calling duties, those will be handed over Sherm ‘Dan Snyder clearly has no confidence in you’ Lewis. What’s the problem with this? Hard to nail that down, there’s like 10. Now I just said Zorn’s play calling hasn’t been great, but hell, what makes you think Lewis is going to do any better? He doesn’t know these players, he doesn’t know this system, he’s been with the team all of 2 weeks, and he hasn’t even been in the NFL for 2 years. There’s also the message this sends to the players. Remember last week when they called on Snyder to give Zorn a vote of confidence and confirm that he would not be fired before the seaon’s end? Well clearly Snyder thought ‘vote of confidence’ and ’strip you of your duties and kick you in the face’  were interchangeable. Now the players are not only defeated, depressed, and confused, but they’re actually ignored and snubbed now too.

On top of these woes, numerous outlets are now reporting that sources have told them Snyder offered the coaching reigns to ousted Broncos leader Mike Shanahan, who politely refused the offer to come help the Titanic by scooping out water with a bucket. No coach is going to want to take over a team mid-season – its an absolute headache because you don’t have time to evaluate players and make roster decisions, you can’t bring in your own coordinators, and you immediately come into a bad situation with a ton of pressure.

The Skins need to just leave Zorn in there, leave Campbell in there, and let them play out the season. If things are still this bad when week 17 wraps up, Snyder can (and will) clean house and start all over. That means a big name coach (regardless of his current skills and plans), a bunch of big name players and lauded draft picks (regardless of how little team chemistry there is or how many people caution him against playing real-life fantasy football), and the opportunity to start this whole mess over from the beginning.

Al Davis would be proud. Hail to the Skins.