Zorn's Balanced Game Plan

When Zorn was hired, he did what football coaches do: He acted like the man in charge. Wide receiver Antwaan Randle El said Zorn drew up his rules, said, "I don't want to fine you, but I will," and made sure players knew they had to be on time, all the time. Still, the Redskins have a veteran locker room. They did not, players said, need a heavy-handed coach who had to prove who's the boss. Once Zorn laid out his schedule and his expectations, he has not deviated, players said. Because players grow accustomed to the rhythms and routines of a work week, it is a small measure by which Zorn has earned enormous appreciation.

"He's been extremely disciplined in keeping the exact schedule that we've talked about," tight end Chris Cooley said. "And for a guy that people assume is quirky or laid-back, he's strict. He's been exact in what we've done throughout."

Zorn, too, has shown his players respect both on the field -- where he has, at various times, listened to Kendall or running back Clinton Portis with suggestions about plays -- and off it. After the Redskins secured Zorn's first victory, a collage appeared on the wall of a hallway directly outside the locker room at Redskins Park. Campbell, Portis, linemen, special teams players -- snapshots from the victory over the New Orleans Saints. There are no collages after losses, but when one win is replaced by the next, the old photos are shrunken, framed and placed on an opposite wall.

"It keeps the morale up," Zorn said.

That same week, in the days of practice after the victory over New Orleans, Zorn bounded down the stairs at Redskins Park and said to a team employee, "Did you get that picture back?" The two spoke, and Zorn pointed at another wall, this one bare. The next day, a generous, stately portrait of the Redskins' six captains -- Campbell and tackle Chris Samuels on offense, tackle Cornelius Griffin and linebacker London Fletcher on defense, Khary Campbell and Rock Cartwright on special teams -- appeared in the spot, the players dressed in dark suits, serious expressions on their faces.

"I wanted these guys to look like men," Zorn said. "And you know what? I've seen other guys walk by it, look at it, and they get this look like, 'I want to be a captain some day.' That's good."

Frequently on Wednesdays, Zorn gathers those captains on the practice fields at Redskins Park. As the rest of the team heads back to the locker room to shower and prepare for meetings, the captains listen to Zorn. More importantly, though, he listens to them. "I want to know if there are any issues I need to know about," he said. The conversations, several captains said, reveal a coach who wants to remain plugged in with his players, yet not intrusive.

"Sometimes you can get a new job and try to become something that you think that position calls for you to be," Fletcher said. "All of a sudden, now you can't communicate with your players, you can't joke around, you have to act like you know everything, all the answers. He hasn't been like that."

A Curiosity for Other Views

In the bags Zorn takes from the team hotel to FedEx Field tonight will likely be one of three books -- "Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West," "Lincoln and the American Manifesto," or one in the series of thrillers by Daniel Silva, featuring the fictional Israeli spy-disguised-as-art-restorer, Gabriel Allon. It is likely that, in the hours before the game in his hotel room, the television will go off, and Zorn will crack a book.

"To not read, just to go trough the whole season and not be stimulated in other ways, I think is kind of foolish," Zorn said last week. "We can get ourselves so wrapped up into one thing, it's crazy."

Yet Zorn is wrapped up in this one thing. "When I'm here," he said at Redskins Park, "there's nothing more important."

Football coaches have long tried to out-perform each other simply by outworking each other, arriving at the office before dawn and, in the case of Zorn's predecessor, Joe Gibbs, occasionally sleeping there. In that tradition, Zorn pulls into the parking lot by 5:15 a.m., and he departs, as he said, "when I'm done," usually around 9 or 9:30 p.m. Stay past 10, he said, "and I'm useless."