Sporting News Football '08: Redskins (Magazine)

Other than Zorn? Nothing.

But it's all about Zorn. Here's the thing, I'm a Redskin fan and traditionalist. To me, Joe Gibbs is one of the greatest coaches of all time. How do you go from him to Jim Zorn, with basically the same player personnel, without taking a step back?

If Zorn puts up a better record than Gibbs, which I admit is possible, it will pretty much turn everything I know about coaching upside down.
But if I'm a betting man, I'm with Daseal. No playoffs for us this year. I won't go so far as 4-12; but if we make 8-8 in this division with a new coach, you'd have to be pleased with Zorn's first season.

Dude, don't forget that Gibbs had a SHIT load of injuries to deal with his last two season here. Last year we finished 9-7 with ALL of our starting recievers going down (we started James Thrash and Keenan McCardell for at least one game), two or three lineman go down, our quarterback, our starting corner, our starting outside linebacker..............Cooley, our only reciever that didn't get hurt had to stay in and help block until our coaches found Alexander (talk about being desperate). And lets not forget about Sean Taylor......................after all that we still made the play offs last year. We made it because of Gibbs. If Zorn goes through all that then I wouldn't be surprised if we go 4-12. But, if Zorn has a healthy team (he better, I'm getting tired of all these injuries) We'll finish first. It won't be so much about turning coaching upside down. It will be more about this team FINALLY playing to its full potential.

For this analysis, each regular season game is simulated 1,000 times, with the sum of the winning percentages of those games being our final predicted record. As can be noted, sometimes a team is "favored" (wins more than 50% of the time) in a different number of our games than the expected record shows. We list this record as the Absolute Record. The assumption of the Absolute Record is that the more likely scenario always happens. Since we know that it does not (see Super Bowl XLII), our expected record (in parentheses next to each team) is far more accurate. Also, especially since we are rounding, it is possible for a team to win a game more often, yet score the same or fewer points on average. In those cases, for Absolute Records, we always take higher winning percentage and are not predicting a tie or a win by an underdog. This is another reason why the expected records are more accurate, as the teams are so evenly matched, the game could easily go either way.

GOSH DANG!!! What the heck has football come to? The above sounds like a science experiment!!! Football used to be about courage, athleticism, toughness, and so on! Now its about science experiments and crap! Geez, maybe I should try and watch soccer..................

Other than Zorn? Nothing.

But it's all about Zorn. Here's the thing, I'm a Redskin fan and traditionalist. To me, Joe Gibbs is one of the greatest coaches of all time. How do you go from him to Jim Zorn, with basically the same player personnel, without taking a step back?

If Zorn puts up a better record than Gibbs, which I admit is possible, it will pretty much turn everything I know about coaching upside down.

But if I'm a betting man, I'm with Daseal. No playoffs for us this year. I won't go so far as 4-12; but if we make 8-8 in this division with a new coach, you'd have to be pleased with Zorn's first season.

I don't have the stats to back this up, but I'm more concerned with year two of the Zorn era (should there be a year two of course). I see guys like Mangini and Payton come guns a blazing there first year, but then experience a bit of a sophomore slump.

I know it doesnt happen much but does anyone remember that a guy right up the road (i.e Andy Reid) did the exact same thing. He went from QB coach with Holmgren, to HC with the eagles. He had less to work with and did some things that you have to respect. I loathe and detest the eagles and everything associated with them, but the Holmgren tree is very reputible, just throwing a couple of names out there, Gruden, Reid, Marriuci, Peyton etc. So its only fair that we will better than people predict.

I am affraid our Defense will take a step back but our offense by the end of the year will be signifigantly better than we all expect. Zorn is a creative coach who will not sit on leads, so no more close wins or losses, plus no one else knows what he brings to the table in terms of philosophy and actual plays. I am hesitant in thinking Playoffs but I definately am thinking in the 6-10 to 9-7 range, which is very respectable for a first year coach.

Lets just hope that he is not a one and done coach if he doesn't win immediately. Give him sometime to get all the right personnel that he needs. In the very near future we could be pushing for the Superbowl.