A Debacle From Top To Bottom

DETROIT

If you lose to the worst team in pro football, does that make you the worst team in pro football?

When you lose to the team that has the worst owner in football, does that make your owner the worst owner in football, your general manager the worst assembler of talent in football?

Just asking.

Because if Jim Zorn has to answer one more question about his job security, it's time to also hold the coach's players and his superiors accountable for this dumpster fire -- this abomination of a loss.

Just three games into a season, a meltdown is remarkably complete. After William Clay Ford, Detroit's owner -- a man whose team had become a punch line after 19 straight losses over two seasons -- said, "We not only got the monkey off our back, we got King Kong off our back," the Washington Redskins' nadir can't be far behind.

Since it's fashionable to offer up Zorn to the NFL termination gods, I combed the locker room late Sunday afternoon to see if players believed this abysmal start and embarrassing loss to the Lions was about the coach, asking key veterans whether they supported the Z-man or had lost confidence in him.

Captains Chris Samuels and Rock Cartwright. Chris Cooley. London Fletcher. Santana Moss. Mike Sellers. Albert Haynesworth.

No player gave an impassioned plea to spare Zorn blame, though Cooley came close ("It's nothing about the coach and whether we believe in him. That's media [expletive]. It's about us."). But every player publicly endorsed the man after just his 19th NFL game.

"It doesn't matter if Joe Gibbs is here or whoever else -- any all-star coach wouldn't necessarily have fingers not pointed at them," Haynesworth said.

Asked if players support Zorn, he added: "I hope so. It's our head coach. You only have one head coach, so I hope we're behind him. I can't speak for everyone else, but I am."