Snyder Needs to Get Out the Way and Let Football People do their Thing

By Chris Murray
For the NFC'Easter
The removal of Redskins head coach Jim Zorn's playcalling duties and bringing in longtime NFL assistant Sherman Lewis as a consultant to call plays for the struggling Skins is the latest episode in the daily soap opera of an owner who runs the team like he's playing in the Yahoo fantasy football league.

While it's not news that the Redskins owner is woefully deficient in his football I.Q., you have to wonder why he didn't just go all the way and fire Zorn and get it over with rather than cutting off his gonads and allowing him to twist in the wind.

But as my significant other often tells me it's like bringing logic to a situation that steadfastly resists it. The Redskins during Snyder's tenure have been a classic example of a bizarre situation trying to figure out which way is up, something they have yet to figure out.

After all, this is an ownership that brought you Steve Spurrier with former Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel leading the offense until they found out that Vanderbilt and Kentucky don't play in the NFC East.

If the Redskins lose and the offense stinks to the point of being rancid again, will Snyder bring in a spiritual medium to conduct a séance so he can consult with Sid Gillman and Bill Walsh from the great beyond? Hey, he might get his spiritual guru to contact the late Jack Kent Cooke who might give young Daniel a piece of his mind on how the young man is running his once proud franchise into the ground.

Bringing in Lewis, who should have been a NFL head coach a long, long, time ago, means that Zorn is basically a dead-man walking. He wields as much power in the governing of the Redskins as Prince Charles does in the governing of Great Britain. All hail to King Zorn—the figure-head leader of the Redskins.

Zorn's situation reminds me of the Republican Congress in 1994 appointing the D.C. Control Board to run the affairs of the city after Marion Barry was re-elected Mayor of Washington. The Control Board reduced Barry to a figure-head mayor with no power. That's the plight of Zorn.

There were various reports that Zorn had to accept Lewis' role as the team's play caller or resign. Even with over $6 million left over the last two years of his contract, Zorn probably should have walked away based on principle alone. But since he's probably going to get fired at the end of the year, I guess he's going to grin and bear it. That is lot of money.

Granted, Zorn hasn't really done a good job with calling the offense, which ranks 23rd in the NFL in yards per game, 29th in scoring, 20th in passing and 23rd in rushing. Zorn simply lacked the experience when the Redskins hired him.

That brings us back to Snyder. It's one of thing to blame the head coach for being in over his head, Jason Campbell, who has seen a merry-go round of offensive coordinators or an injury depleted offensive line for the Redskins woes on offense, but the owner has to be held accountable because he put it all together.

For all of Snyder's wheeling and dealing, Jerry Jones-like behavior, the Redskins are 78-88 under his watch as owner with just two playoff wins. If he wants to emulate his role model—Jones (whose own Dallas Cowboys haven't won a playoff game since 1996) he has to humble himself and get out of his own way and let football people do their jobs. Jones has a bunch of Super Bowl rings to halfway justify his micro-management.

The evidence is overwhelming, Snyder's micromanagement hasn't helped this team win on a consistent basis. Vinnie Cerrato, the team's vice president of football operations, is another guy who is a mere figure head. The team needs a general manager, who knows the league. You mean to tell me with all of Snyder's millions, he couldn't pull in a legitimate general manager who knows something about the league?

Even a constant meddler like New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner realized after constantly bumping his head up against the ceiling because of his own meddling realized that you have to let people who know the game do their thing. Yankee general managers like former GM Bob Watson and current GM Brian Cashman have won championships for that team because Steinbrenner realized he needed people who had a better grasp of the game than himself.

Snyder needs to realize that his way has not worked and that his time to do something different. If he's a true business man, he'll find people good enough to manage his team.

If he keeps going the way that he's going, Snyder and his franchise will be the living definition of insanity which means doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.