How is Jim Zorn doing so far?

[HolyLandSkinsFan]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

So far so good I guess, but that's not saying much. We simply don't have enough to go on in order to judge how he's doing.

I disagree. There are a lot of aspects to being a successful head coach. Let me list a few.

1. Interface with Owner. Zorn has a great respect for Mr. Snyder and seems to be handling this well.
2. Interface with coaches - I've heard a lot of positive things about teamwork and listening. It takes a team of coaches to win. Last year we had great coaches but Sanders and Williams were too experienced and set in their ways to work together.

The coaches respect Zorn for coming in to a playoff team and keeping what was working - including the terminology and focusing on fixing what needed help. This says a lot about Zorn as well as Bugel and Blache

3. Interface with players - Zorn as a former player understands players and is making them work really hard - but in a way where they respect him, they want to win for him. Zorn is the Anti-Parcells. It's much easier to come in and run a military boot camp - than to get players to play hard out of desire. After Lewis left us the defensive players wanted things done a certain way and our D went down since the players were running the D instead of the coaches. Zorn is clearly running the show - but listens to the players and they like him. If he can succeed in getting a quality offense down and listening to the players then it will be hard to beet us.

4. Interface with media - Zorn is creating great positive spirit by always being upbeat, honest and realistic.

5. Thorough planning of off season - he's done a good job with this too.

6. Taking over from Gibbs - taking over from a legend is very hard. In a lot of ways this is still Gibbs team. Zorn has been smart enough to keep what was working and humble enough to only install parts that can be improved. When we win, and I think we will Gibbs gets a lot of the credit as well as Zorn for building on Gibbs instead of breaking down to build up again.

7. X's and O's and play calling. This is where we can't yet judge Zorn. He may be a lousy play caller and he may create lousy plays. But Turner was a scientist - more than a coach and football is won on emotion more than logic. If Zorn's team will play for him hard - even if he calls the wrong plays - he'll win and he'll also learn. Zorn is a rookie and will make rookie mistakes - but we need to give him some time to develop and make those mistakes and learn from them. I think Zorn has demonstrated that he can listen will and learn from experience. And in any case, maybe Zorn will turn out to be a play calling genius as well as a creative guru who makes plays that work. I like what he said about running the same plays while varying who is doing what and switching around receivers and sending portis out on patterns etc... Do you guys have any idea what confusing mess this will create for defenses? They'll need to play more zone than man to man and this will open up the pass game - especially for a WCO.

My prediction is that Zorn is going to make the NFL to like the arena league and we'll resemble the recent Rams (ironically). I think Zorn will be able to pull off what Sanders never was given the chance to try.

My big question is what happens in the rain and snow in December when we need to rely heavily on the run game - can we win key games then???