Pundits pile on to Redskins, and rightfully so

Guess we can scratch Bill Cowher off the list of potential candidates to replace forlorn Jim Zorn next season, if not sooner. Cowher, now a CBS studio analyst, is clearly appalled by events at Redskins Park in recent weeks, judging from his comments on Sunday's CBS pregame show.

"Three weeks ago when Sherman Lewis was brought in, it began the undermining of Jim Zorn as head coach and offensive coordinator," Cowher said. "When he was faced this past week with the stripping of the play calling, he had two choices: number one, you say no and that could lead to his firing. Or number two, you can say if that's part of the contract and they can do that, you accept it, you leave the room and you endorse it. He didn't do either. And in doing so, he lost his dignity and his credibility. To me, he lost his ability to be a head coach and lead this football team. He's nothing more than a figurehead right now."

Loquacious former Pro Bowl tight end Shannon Sharpe, Cowher's CBS colleague, probably won't be making any guest appearances anytime soon on Vinny Cerrato's weekly radio show, either.

"There's enough blame to go around, but let's start at the top with the owner, Dan Snyder, because he thinks you can win the Super Bowl by spending the most money the first day of free agency, and that's never worked," Sharpe said Sunday. "Then you have Vinny Cerrato. He has a situation where he has a radio show. I don't think a player personnel or general manager should talk about the inner workings of what's happening in the organization.

"Maybe Jim Zorn is in over his head, but when you hire the coordinator before you hire the head coach, there's a problem right there. You don't go to a grocery store, put the stuff in the basket and then start making your list."

It was like that all over the airwaves on Sunday and Monday night. Every NFL pregame or football studio show offered stinging commentary from talking-head former players, coaches and administrators on the Washington Redskins' sorry situation. The "Monday Night Football" telecast added much more of the same, with Ron Jaworski, almost always a positive presence in the booth, saying simply that this downward-spiraling football team clearly "needs an attitude adjustment."

Still, the ire directed toward the Redskins owner and management from their fans and from the media, both local and national, seems almost unprecedented in recent years, perhaps matched only by the outrage when Art Modell moved the Browns from Cleveland to Baltimore. While Modell still remains vilified in Ohio, at least he had a very soft landing in Charm City, where he was hailed as a benevolent savior of the region and has been transformed as a beloved Baltimorean.

The same can hardly be said for Snyder and Cerrato, who continue to blame the media, particularly The Washington Post, for the rising backlash directed at them from a clearly agitated fan base after 10 years of major mismanagement. That would almost be laughable, if blaming the messenger wasn't so misguided.

Snyder remains totally out of the public eye, steadfastly maintaining his policy of not commenting on the state of the team during the season. But this is no ordinary season, even if his team is way below ordinary in every aspect of the game. And trotting out Cerrato to say, on his radio show last Friday, that Zorn would be the coach the rest of the season "and hopefully the future" was about the lamest (and perhaps dishonest) vote of confidence imaginable.

Cerrato not making that announcement in a news conference at Redskins Park earlier in the week also spoke volumes about the relationship between the team and the media contingent that covers it. Cerrato never even made himself available to reporters after stripping Zorn of his play calling following a 14-6 loss to Kansas City on Oct. 18, typical behavior for a franchise that also could use a major public relations adjustment.

Cerrato did allow himself to be interviewed at FedEx Field by ESPN, his former employer, in a segment aired Monday night on "SportsCenter." ESPN reporter Sal Paolantonio asked him many of the right questions, wondering like the rest of us why he had waited so long after the Chiefs game to say that Zorn would be here the rest of the year.

Cerrato said it took a while "to recover" from that devastating loss to the Chiefs, and also insisted he never asked Zorn to resign. Paolantonio probably should have asked him about what Cowher and many others said all week about marginalizing Zorn and turning him into a figurehead coach by stripping him of his play calling. But Cerrato was in a full defensive crouch on camera and probably would have denied any such thing.

Cerrato did speak with reporters Tuesday at Redskins Park, but where was he when they really needed him last week, not only on the subject of Zorn and Sherman Lewis, but also the possible career ending injury of offensive tackle Chris Samuels?

The Redskins at this point seem in total denial about what's gone wrong with this football team, but from the outside looking in, it seemed so obvious to all those ESPN people on camera before the Philadelphia game.

Mike Ditka: "You can't win with a lame duck coach. You cannot blame the coach and the players. . . . It all starts with the owner."

Keyshawn Johnson: "You can't win when you hire the wrong people."

Tom Jackson: Snyder "knows nothing about football. . . . He has no idea. He will eventually get desperate and hire the right person."

Stay tuned. It's only Week 8.