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Torn by the Trials, Zorn Still Finds the Joy
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Zorn understood that, too. But over the course of the season, as Zorn's offense sputtered -- it ranks 29th in a 32-team league in scoring and has scored two touchdowns in a game only once during the second half of the season -- players had become increasingly aware of their coach's predilection for focusing on "execution." On the last day of November, veteran offensive lineman Pete Kendall stood in front of his locker at FedEx Field, a troubling 23-7 loss to the New York Giants just behind him. He was asked about such an assessment.
"It's always execution," Kendall said, allowing himself a small smirk.
That afternoon, Zorn had allowed the losing to get to him. The Redskins, playing in the rain at home, had failed to charge after an extra-point attempt, so when the Giants muffed the snap, they weren't in position to block it, and New York converted anyway. Campbell missed a receiver, wide open down the field, and settled for a shorter throw underneath. As Zorn's frustration grew, he began to rant on the sideline, not atypical for a coach whose game-day emotions sometimes betray his midweek mantra of "staying medium." Here, there was no medium. He berated ballboys. He -- gulp -- used a swear word, an infraction that costs him $1 to Isaac, who has hardly become rich on the deal.
"I want to be competitive and fiery," Zorn said the following week. "But I was whining."
Sitting in the coaches' box high above the field, Smith could take no more. He removed his headset and tossed it on the table in front of him.
"He was screaming in my ear, and I didn't want to hear it," Smith said. "It was like, 'Man, you're giving me a headache.' "
The next day, Smith appeared in his boss's office.
"You and I have never coached together," Smith said he told Zorn. "Is that who you really are?"
Smith knew the answer: No. Zorn told him as much. "That's not me," he said. From there on out, he ditched that act.
"If that's what's going on inside of me, I think I've got struggles," Zorn said. "I've got problems."
It was, weeks before his public lashing of himself, part of Zorn's ongoing self-evaluation, "absolutely a learning process," he said. During the Bengals game, there was no such meltdown, just a jutted-out jaw, tense with frustration. And by the end of the week, with today's final home game still ahead, Zorn had blended his harsh self-evaluation with Smith's advice, to look at the whole picture, 53 players, 17 coaches, the structure in which he is just one piece, albeit an important one.
"I feel like I let the organization down," he said. "I think, realistically, I can see what happened. I can see what the failings are. And yet, that part doesn't matter, because some of those failings were there the week before.
