Washington Redskins
12/24/2008
A day after the Washington Redskins were eliminated from playoff contention, Vinny Cerrato, the team's executive vice president of football operations, reiterated yesterday that first-year head coach Jim Zorn will return next season. Zorn, who is also Washington's play-caller, has come under scrutiny as the offense struggled during a three-game losing streak and 1-5 stretch that ended with Sunday's 10-3 victory over Philadelphia. But Cerrato said replacing Zorn, who has two more guaranteed seasons remaining on his contract, "has never been discussed, period."
12/23/2008
To Greg Blache, no player in the NFL has been more dynamic this month than Philadelphia Eagles running back Brian Westbrook, and the Redskins' defensive coordinator went to extremes as he schemed to contain him. There's a danger in that, but his approach worked perfectly yesterday, with the proof coming in just how seldom Westbrook actually touched the ball in Washington's 10-3 win at FedEx Field. "We were going to deny him the football," Blache said.
12/21/2008
Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis missed practice on Friday with a muscle spasm in his back and is listed as questionable for Sunday's game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Coach Jim Zorn said he expects Portis to play. "He's working out the kinks," Zorn said.
12/20/2008
Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis missed practice on Friday with a muscle spasm in his back and is listed as questionable for Sunday's game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Coach Jim Zorn said he expects Portis to play.
12/16/2008
The only real issue left in the Redskins' season with two games left: whether Jim Zorn keeps his job beyond 2008. Neither Daniel Snyder nor Vinny Cerrato seemed immediately interested in touching the vote-of-confidence issue after Sunday's loss, and who can blame them? Even if the owner or executive vice president for football operations sound off in support of the newbie position coach they gambled on last February to replace Joe Gibbs, they give the issue credence and drive the story. Saying "Jim is our guy" means they had doubt in the first place. And the truth is, they have no intention of looking for another coach after last offseason.
12/12/2008
Clinton Portis is laughing off his public criticism of Coach Jim Zorn, and offering to buy beers all around. It's tempting to forget the whole affair as one of his amusing scrapes. "I'm gonna speak my mind, so it's gonna cause trouble every now and then," he says. The trouble is, Portis's tirade against Zorn belongs in a larger narrative: The Redskins are an organization in which authority has been so chronically undermined that the franchise player thinks it's okay to rip his rookie coach publicly and sow division on a team struggling to get out of a 1-4 slump. Zorn is beginning to learn exactly why other coaches have found it so tough to turn the Redskins into consistent winners these last few years. The realities of the organization are setting in: the decade of bad drafts and free agent bingeing that have left them dependent on a handful of highly paid playmakers like Portis; the lack of a professional general manager to develop coherent team depth; and, above all, the faulty command structure that has undermined every head coach except Joe Gibbs.
12/12/2008
The Washington Redskins won the fan Pro Bowl voting in nine of 19 positions for the NFC, the result of an aggressive marketing campaign that paid dividends even for the lowest rated kicker in the league.
12/11/2008
Redskins coach Jim Zorn may be vying for his job over the final three games. Sports talk callers aren't the only ones wondering whether the Redskins might have Bill Cowher on speed dial for 2009. Redskins Park sources are also pondering if the team's 1-4 collapse to practically ruin its once sure playoff chances could also claim the coach. "The honeymoon is definitely over," said one team insider of Redskins owner Dan Snyder and Zorn.
12/11/2008
A day after Washington Redskins Coach Jim Zorn said Clinton Portis's lack of practice contributed to his benching during Sunday's 24-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, the running back fired back yesterday, pointedly criticizing the coach's communication and decision-making. In his weekly radio appearance on WTEM-980's "The John Thompson Show," Portis dismissed as "B.S." Zorn's suggestion that missing practice had hurt the execution of his assignments. He said he was at every meeting and every practice last week, noted teammates had played on Sunday after missing practice the week before and guaranteed he knows the playbook better than any player besides the quarterbacks.
12/11/2008
The rookie head coach and the flamboyant running back reached a smiling truce Wednesday, with Clinton Portis announcing that he's "cool with everything" and that he has no plans to sever ties with the Washington Redskins. Portis and coach Jim Zorn held a 10-minute meeting early in the day to discuss Portis' blistering comments made during a radio interview on Tuesday.
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