Well, here’s a shocker. Former Seahawks quarterbacks coach Jim Zorn, who was hired by the Redskins on January 25th as their new offensive coordinator, has been promoted from within … to the position of head coach. The Redskins talked to many candidates, including Jim Fassel, Steve Mariucci, and Indy defensive coordinator Ron Meeks. One suspects that if Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo hadn’t decided to re-up with Big Blue, he might have the Redskins job right now. But it’s Zorn, the first quarterback in Seahawks history, the 1976 NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year, a member of the team’s Ring of Honor, and perhaps the one person besides Mike Holmgren who can claim real credit for Matt Hasselbeck’s development, who will take the job.
After the Seahawks hired former Washington quarterbacks coach Bill Lazor to replace Zorn last Wednesday, I had a back-and-forth with Will Allensworth of the Hogs Haven blog for a piece I wrote for Seahawks.NET. We talked about both coaches, and I explained why I thought Zorn was an excellent candidate for the offensive coordinator position.
As for Zorn, the first word that comes to mind is “integrity”. Integrity in his personal life, in his methodology, in everything he does. This is a guy who’s in Seattle’s Ring of Honor as a quarterback, had some great NFL seasons, won the 1976 NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year award, and he spent 1988 through 1996 as a quarterback coach/offensive assistant for three colleges. There are no airs about him. He has no entitlement issues - in fact he liked to ride his bicycle from home to practice in his second go-round with the Seahawks. He’s got a lot of knowledge and he’s not content to sit back and do things the traditional way. His QB drills have consisted of dodgeball (footwork and agility), Slip-and-Slides (QB slides, not to mention fodder for Kenny Mayne), and having his players throw footballs into small nets yards away (accuracy, competitiveness). But everything has a purpose, and he’s a guy who will pore over all the film it is possible to watch in order to make Campbell the best quarterback he can be. It says a lot that someone as anal retentive about and possessive of his quarterbacks as Mike Holmgren trusted Zorn as he did.
In the larger scheme issue, Seattle has run a modified version of the West Coast offense through Holmgren’s tenure. It wasn’t a pass-wacky gameplan until the second half of this last season, when the running game fell apart and the Seahawks had to rely on Hasselbeck to get to the playoffs. I would liken it to the Elway-Davis Broncos of the late 1990s, very balanced, with a little more passing to the backs thrown in (he likes to do it more than he has because Alexander was a better runner than he was a receiver when he was elite). Zorn’s a really good fit with a system that features versatile backs and less-than-elite receivers (that’s not a slam on Moss and Randle El; Hasselbeck hasn’t had any “A-guys” through the Seahawks’ recent great seasons) in an integrated offense. The offense he has seen since 2001 features a lot of inside slants, skinny posts, quick outs — quick passes designed to get YAC. Not sure how that jibes with the Saunders offense, but Holmgren teaches an offense that is ruthlessly efficient when it’s on, and still pretty effective when it’s having a collective bad day. More options than a defense can cover is the general idea.
I think it’s a great fit, Zorn’s a guy who’s primed and ready for this promotion, and the Redskins will benefit from his presence.
Again, that was about the offensive coordinator position. I think that Jim Zorn will be an excellent head coach someday — or, to rephrase that, I have no reason to believe that he won’t be an excellent head coach someday. Now, for Zorn, the real challenges begin. How is his temperament? Can he manage personalities? Will he run into trouble because popular assistants like Gregg Williams were run out of town instead of being given the job? Will this be a successful example of the trend toward younger and/or less-experienced coaches combined with a greater presence from the front office?
In any case, Zorn has signed a five-year contract worth approximately $15 million. “I’ve always dreamed of being a head coach with a franchise rich in tradition like the Redskins,” Zorn said in a statement. “As a player who had to fight Redskins teams at RFK as well as at our home field, I know about the history of this franchise as well as the passion of its fans. I won’t let you down.”
posted
2-9-2008 at 11:29 PM by
Doug Farrar
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$3 million per year for a newbie head coach? Didn’t the Skins have some leverage, since he was their new offensive coordinator? Even with the inflation of coaching contracts in the NFL and NCAA, this seems like big compensation.
:: Mac — 2/9/2008 @ 11:45 pm
1. How old is Zorn?
2. Assuming that Zorn hires an offesnsive coordinator, does the oc or zorn himself, actually call the plays in the game?
3. Not a question but an observation, Jason Campbell has a fumbling problem, any system that gets the ball out quicker will help that.
4. Back to questions, does zorn like shotgun or not?
:: rodney harrison\\\\\\\'s dealer — 2/9/2008 @ 11:48 pm
#2 point 2 - there’s a great candidate out there that I think would fit well as an Offensive Coordinator over there. Does anyone know if the Redskins have talked at all to Jim Fassel? :) I’m sure they have his number somewhere…
:: vijay — 2/10/2008 @ 12:11 am
OC = Billick. I hear he’s an O genius and strangely, available. Plus he lives nearby….
Regarding money, Snyder has never been shy about spending big on coaches and $3M sounds about right for a first-timer. Al Davis he ain’t. Indy re-inked Caldwell as assistant HC plus annointed HC heir for $2M and he has even fewer discernable duties the next year or two than an OC or DC. And Irsay is not made of money like Snyder.
Anybody know what Mora Jr is getting in a similar situation? I know it should be in my hometown paper, but I hardly ever read hard-copy news anymore.
:: Bobman — 2/10/2008 @ 12:48 am
Does Snyder really know what he’s doing?
:: Torn — 2/10/2008 @ 12:48 am
Crap. I was expecting Mooch, not Zorn.
:: Dice — 2/10/2008 @ 1:06 am
Lessee, another 5-11 season for the Deadskins. Nobody will be able to blame Joe Gibbs for this…
This article gets to the heart of the matter (click name)
:: ravens nut — 2/10/2008 @ 1:08 am
As a Redskins fan, I am fine with this. Sure, if it were up to me I would have stuck with Saunders and Williams, or at least Williams, but since they didn’t, bringing Zorn on board seems like a decent gamble to me.
:: Penrose 10,000 — 2/10/2008 @ 1:10 am
I’m happy my team has a coach finally. I trust Doug and he had some very complementary things to say about Zorn. My bigger concern involves ownership and management of the franchise and whether even a competent future star coach can succeed in an environment so dominated by people with questionable football histories.
To give an idea of how little I know about him, the official redskins site sprung on me the fact that Zorn is 54 years old. That’s not an old-time coach by any means, but he’s approaching 20 years older than what I’d consider a young coaching candidate. Based exclusively on my understanding of what Dan Snyder is all about, I don’t think Zorn sees all five years of this contract. I hope I’m wrong.
:: Skin Patrol — 2/10/2008 @ 1:29 am
He may or may not be a good coach, but none of those qualities listed exemplify anything close to “integrity”.
:: mrslappy — 2/10/2008 @ 1:56 am
re: 5
No.
This has been another edition of Easy Answers to Simple Questions…
:: RickD — 2/10/2008 @ 2:09 am
Not sure what to think of this. I know that Zorn has a repuatation of being a good tutor of young QB’s, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him mentioned as a HC candidate at any point in his coaching career.
:: RobM — 2/10/2008 @ 5:10 am
Re 5 –
As an Eagles fan, I couldn’t be happier that Snyder apparently has no clue when it comes to running his football organization. He may be a savvy businessman, but he doesn’t know football.
:: PhillyCWC — 2/10/2008 @ 9:59 am
My biggest question is “How much patience will Snyder have for the growing pains of a newbie head coach and a still young QB?
Under Gibbs, this team is middle of the pack or just above. Will he allow Zorn and Co. to take a step back for a year or two while they implement their philosophy and sign or draft new personnel?
:: Herm? — 2/10/2008 @ 10:02 am
Well, he does have a very cool name.
:: Lagfish — 2/10/2008 @ 12:27 pm
2. I would guess that Zorn will have an impact on the offense but not call the plays.
- Seattle didn’t run the gun, but it was because Hasselback didn’t like it and thought it threw off his timing.
- I think the chances that Zorn coaches this team for 5 years are slim to none. The Danny has had what, 5-6 coaches in the last 10 years and some of them were pretty big names.
Jason Campbell, let’s talk some Jason Campbell. He didn’t even finish the year as the starting quarterback to a career long backup. He has a slow release much like Byron Leftwhich ( although not as bad), and he has a fumbeling problem. Campbells stats were OK, but consider he was throwing a ton of low risk balls to his RB’s, TE, and WR screens. He also was the opposite of “clutch” throwing interceptions in Tampa, Dallas ( multiple times), and messing up in Philly, 1st NY. The fans like him because he is “athletic”, but he keeps getting hurt and isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
I was sort of hoping the Deadskins would hire Ron Meeks, so that the could go 4-12 and 5-11 and then have to find another coach in 2 more years.
:: Chris — 2/10/2008 @ 2:17 pm
Zorn’s ability as a coach isn’t going to be nearly as important as everyone thinks.
Player evaluation will matter more than any x or o he ever matters.
He will need to be able to evaluate the players that get brought into camp and Cerrato and company will have to do a good job of getting a good crop of players into camp.
For all that Coughlin accomplishe this year I think the front office deserves alot of credit for
a. not panicing and changing the entire coaching staff
b. having every player they drafted in 07 contributing by november.
:: mrparker — 2/10/2008 @ 4:40 pm
17. Giants team model, build through the draft, with the addition of a few key free agents sprinkled in. Plax a few years ago, Pierce, Karim Mckenzie.
Look at the Deadskins on the other hand. They try and build a hand picke team based on players already in the NFL. They traded away valued picks for TJ Ducket when they didn’t have to, and upped the deals on Brandon Lloyd, Mark Brunell and other guys when they didn’t need to. The team is an absolute joke and the Raiders of the east coast. Their owner cares more about bringing in proven names and selling a jersey, than winning games. That team and this city deserves all of the losing that they get.
:: Chris — 2/10/2008 @ 6:31 pm
Well, given that they already had Zorn in charge of the offense and had hired a defensive coordinator, this probably makes more sense than bringing in yet another guy who had no choice over his coordinators. At least Zorn will get some say (presumably) in who they hire for OC.
:: mm — 2/10/2008 @ 8:53 pm
So, this will be Jason Campbell’s 7th offensive system in eight years?
:: CookiePuss — 2/10/2008 @ 11:22 pm
Re 16: The shotgun was introduced late in 2006 (primarily with Seneca Wallace according to PFP07) and was used in 2007 more frequently by Hasselback.
The reluctance to run the shotgun was from Holmgren, not Hasselbeck. Click name for details.
:: 7ballwhizkid — 2/11/2008 @ 12:10 am
re 16:
i agree i want a 2-14 or 3-13 season from washington just so snyder can lose faith in cerrato and go out and get a real gm.
:: rodney harrison's dealer — 2/11/2008 @ 1:00 am
Zorn is a very decent guy and is probably a great QB coach. The problem I see is that he’s worked almost his entire career as a position coach, in charge of a small handful of players. Being a head coach requires so much beyond the X’s and O’s, so many organizational and communication skills, that I would be a little surprised if he can pull it off.
:: Erik — 2/11/2008 @ 8:15 am
Good news redskins haters. Zorn has already pissed off redskins locals by refering to the team colors as ” Red, Yellow, and black”.
Everybody knows the Redskins are Bourgondy and Gold. Some people refer to the team as Bourgondy and Gold. They don’t call them the yellow and red ( and where did black come from)?
That is such an embarassment. That is like taking the Raiders job and saying you want to win some games for the metalic, charcol and white. Or taking the job at Ohio state and saying you want to win for the Red, Silver and and clear.
I hope Zorn wins one game, losses too, and that the Redskins are average to bad for a loooooooong time.
:: Chris — 2/11/2008 @ 8:19 am
Re 23 (Erik) : Another way that could be put is “surprised if he’s given enough time to grow into the job”
:: wr — 2/11/2008 @ 9:11 am
[Massive, embarrassing geekery] Zorn? No! Behind that steel facade lurks a villain! Zorn is Magneto! Zorn is Magneto! [/Massive, embarrassing geekery]
If you do not get the reference, then you are not an epic nerd.
Hoiven glaven!
:: Soulless Merchant of Fear — 2/11/2008 @ 9:43 am
Only bad thing about the Giants winning the Super Bowl is that we have to put up with their obnoxious fans (Sorry Barnwell, no offense to you intended) on every board.
Regarding the shotgun - Campbell has difficulty taking snaps from under Casey Rabach. I don’t know if Rabach is short but Campbell (and Collins for that matter) being a larger QB had to really get down on his haunches to take the snap. It looked very awkward, even for someone athletic and flexible.
Gibbs didn’t use Shotgun much either, I think they introduced it to the playbook the year before or first year with Saunders with Brunell under center. I believe at the time they were having some line problems and needed some extra time for the QB.
I’m skeptical of Campbell in the WC system. Ironically, its probably ideal for Brunell, and I suspect should he stay on this season he slides back up to 2nd string.
:: Joe T. — 2/11/2008 @ 11:12 am
Odd move, tiny receivers in a cincinnati offense hybrid, I can’t see that working all that well.
Re 24: What colour is Bourgondy?
u u
:: Karl Cuba — 2/11/2008 @ 12:10 pm
Redskins put themselves into this situation by hiring an offensive and defensive coordinator before hiring the head coach. Who would want to join a team like that? but if you already got the coordinators hired, who wouldnt accept a promotion? they basically chained themselves to two options.
Nothing against Zorn, but knowing Dan Snyder, I bet this guy sucks as head coach.
:: Tom — 2/11/2008 @ 12:29 pm
16: What on earth are you talking about? You imply that Campbell somehow was beaten out for the job to Collins, even though he was out because of injury. You later acknowledge the injury, in order to imply that he’s injury-prone, even though he’s sat out due to injury for exactly two stretches, one of which was in the preseason (so the team was probably erring on the side of caution). And although the ‘Skins offense did have a lot of those short throws, they opened their offense up during the last couple games he played, and a lot of his attempts were to WRs 10-25 yards downfield. Campbell responded particularly well to this in the Dallas game. Finally, I have no idea where you get the idea that “he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.” I’d say anybody who’s able to absorb 6 systems in 7 years (or whatever it’s been) is plenty sharp.
I don’t think Campbell is a demigod, or even the next Steve Young. You make a good point that he does fumble too much, and that he struggled in late-game situations last year. But if you’re going to criticize him (or anyone else), please be reasonable about it.
:: dmb — 2/11/2008 @ 1:00 pm
22: For better or worse, Snyder would probably blame Zorn, not Cerrato, for a poor season.
19, 28: Zorn was supposedly the top choice of both Gregg Williams and Jim Fassel — the two candidates who were apparently the front-runners for any real length of time — for OC. In this light, hiring Zorn early isn’t quite so bad, though I agree that it’s not really the best approach.
Also, sorry to all for the double post.
:: dmb — 2/11/2008 @ 1:06 pm
Isn’t he the bad guy in Superman 2?
:: B — 2/11/2008 @ 2:33 pm
Gibbs didn’t have the shotgun until year 2. I guess he didn’t realize that times were a changing. Old man Gibbs was still living in the 80’s.
Campbell was beat out by Collins late in the year. There was contraversy talk here in Washington after Collins was handidly outperforming Camobell. Gibbs tried to squash it in the final weeks by saying that they were taking “extra precautions” with keeping Campbell on the sidelines.
I’d agree they started to open it up a “little” at the end when Saunders had more an influence on the play calling and he got to use his boy Collins.
You say that Jason Campbell has had 6 offensive coordinators in 7 years. That’s not true, and the guy has been in the NFL for 3 years. Do you always defend rookie quarterbacks by saying that they have had 2 different coordinators in the past 2 years? Campbell wasn’t even active his first year. He wasn’t even worth it to activate him so how do you know if he even understood the schemes or not? He was on the bench behind Patrick Ramsey.
If the Redskins go to a WCO, Campbell is a horrible fit. He has a slow release, fumbiling problem, and freezes late in games.
:: Chris — 2/11/2008 @ 2:49 pm
Re: 32
(Zod appears)
President: “Oh God, oh, God!
Zod: “… It’s Zod.”
:: Mike Y — 2/11/2008 @ 3:24 pm
To 33:
Jason Campbell has had six coordinators in seven years. The link in my name points to a 2005 ESPN story about his time in Auburn.
“During his 46 appearances for the Tigers, Campbell completed 552 of 854 passes for 7,299 yards, with 45 touchdown passes and 24 interceptions. Despite playing under different offensive coordinators during each of his four seasons, Campbell completed more than 60 percent of his passes all four years. He completed 69.6 percent of his attempts while leading undefeated Auburn to a No. 2 ranking and a 16-13 win over Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl.”
In 2005, Washington’s offensive coordinator was Don Breaux. In 2006 and 2007, the offensive coordinator was Al Saunders. That’s six in seven.
And again, Campbell tore his patellar tendon against the Bears and missed the rest of the season to injury. Saying he was beat out for the job by Todd Collins while he was hobbling around on the sidelines isn’t being fair to Campbell at all.
:: Matt — 2/11/2008 @ 3:59 pm
I’m not sure any Redskin refers to their colors as Bourgondy. Unless, of course, it was Clinton Portis showing up to a press conference dressed as Philip I, Duke of Bourgundy, which actually wouldn’t surprise me.
He’d probably wear burgundy for his colors, though.
:: citizen jason — 2/11/2008 @ 4:03 pm
I was sleeping through Zorn’s press conference when I was woken up by a terrible reference to the redskins team colors as black and yellow.
WTF?
He’ll learn. The fact that Snyder hired Zorn after having interviewed much bigger names could mean a lot or could mean very little. We will have to see.
I still contend that a good head coach needs to be a talent evaluator more than anything else. He needs to have personel people behind him who understand how to evaluate players.
The skins have been good drafters for a while and pretty bad at free agent pick ups. Maybe they can stay away from free agency except for when looking for depth and keep their draft picks which they seem to be decent at evaluating
:: mrparker — 2/11/2008 @ 4:33 pm
Re 33:
Most rookie QBs are given slack for learning a new offensive system. In fact most veteran QBs are too. Also, Gibbs’ 1.0 offense featured plenty of deep throws. He even said about Mark Rypien, all he does well is throw the deep ball.
:: Tom D — 2/11/2008 @ 4:40 pm
RE:26 So apparently Dan Snyder has been trawling X-Men message boards looking for a way to defeat Weapon X.
:: Jimmy in Oz — 2/11/2008 @ 5:03 pm
33: First, I apologize for my tone in my previous post. As a Redskins fan, there’s enough wrong with “my” team that I see plenty of valid/warranted criticism; as a result of this, I tend to respond a little rashly when I see what I perceive to be potshots or less-valid criticisms. (For example, “Gibbs didn’t have the shotgun until year 2. I guess he didn’t realize that times were a changing. Old man Gibbs was still living in the 80’s.” So is Andy Reid living in the 80s, too?) After all, there’s plenty of fodder for fair abuse.
That said, I’m still not convinced by many of your arguments. I assume you’re saying that Campbell was “beaten out” because he was ready to play. However, there’s a HUGE difference between being “beaten out” for a job by being yanked while healthy (or losing the job in training camp), and a coach going with the hot hand when one player’s been injured. And the way Collins was playing, I’m not sure that there are many quarterbacks that WOULDN’T have (temporarily) “lost” their job in that situation.
Also, I’m really confused because you’re saying that: (a) virtually all of Campbell’s success was based on short throws, and (b) he’ll be terrible in a West Coast offense. Now I know that the original WCO was dominated by intermediate routes, but my understanding is that today’s WCO is dominated by . . . short routes.
Looking back at the play-by-play of the second WAS-DAL game, Campbell threw more short passes than I remembered, but he still completed a handful of intermediate-to-long throws to McCardell and Moss. (You have to mix it up a bit if you’re throwing 54 times.) Even so, they didn’t just change things when Collins came in.
I’m fully aware that Campbell has been in the league for three years; other folks already addressed how it’s possible for him to have experienced 6 OCs in 7 years.
Finally, I’ll concede that Campbell’s play in close late-game situations hasn’t been very good, but I’d like to point out the obvious small-sample problem.
In sum, I don’t think it’s fair to trash the guy because of a few mistakes and a fumbling problem.
:: dmb — 2/11/2008 @ 6:00 pm
Re 40:
I just want to add one thing to what you said. Two years ago when Herm Edwards had Green and Huard, just about every one agreed it was a bad idea to start Green for the playoff game because Huard had the hot hand. Here Gibbs had a similar choice and made the one most people here would. Lets not let that get in the way of bashing Campbell though.
:: Tom D — 2/11/2008 @ 6:13 pm
41: That’s exactly the case I had in mind! Perhaps the most interesting example I know of is Steve Young being replaced by Steve Bono during the 1991 season.
:: dmb — 2/11/2008 @ 7:10 pm
#40: I don’t get the slow release part criticism of Campbell, either. His release isn’t quick, but it’s not Leftwich-level slow. It’s pretty much just average. Campbell’s real problem was just never getting any time to learn a system at all.
I still think the Redskins have too much talent to not be average next year. For the long term, I don’t really think that coaches can make talented teams bad - I think they can only make talented teams mediocre, and mediocre teams bad - so as long as other people are calling the personnel shots, I don’t think the Redskins will really go into a Raiders/49ers level decline.
:: Pat — 2/11/2008 @ 10:01 pm
The quarterback taking snaps from the gun doesn’t mean deep throws. It means the QB catches snaps instead of taking them under center. Gibbs did throw the ball downfield in his hay day, but Gibbs 2.0 was mortally scared of turnovers now ala Herm Edwards.
40. There is a difference between dropping back and turning sideways and throwing to your FB in the flat or a WR screen, and reading the LBs and DBs and throwing in the WCO. I think his slow release would make this system even more challenging for him.
So a rookie quarterback played under 2 coordinators in 2 years? Campbell has been under Saunders the past 2 years and been in the NFL for 3 years, that isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Some might argue that playing under multiple schemes in college would make him more battle tested and smart.
Campbell might have “won” at Auburn but he had maybe the best backfield in college FB history. I really wasn’t impressed as he wore that game manager shirt a lot at Auburn.
I love how Redskins fans make excuse after excuse for Campbell. Collins outplayed him late in the year and Campbell was “ok” to come back but they didn’t let him. Gibbs chose to go with Collins. Being benched when you are ok to play is being ” beaten out” in my book.
I never said that Campbell had as slow of a release Leftwhich, but he does have a slower than average release and that is a problem. So is the Culpeper/Warner like fumble problem.
The Skins have some talent, but not the 20 million over the cap worth that they paid for it, and they are in the hardest division in the NFL. I’d favor Dallas, Philly and NY all over the deadskins next year.
:: Chris — 2/12/2008 @ 9:30 am
To all who are addressing Chris’s criticisms about Jason Campbell, recall that Chris hates quarterbacks who have a bit of melanin.
:: Sophandros — 2/12/2008 @ 4:03 pm
Too small of a sample size to make a broad statement like that.
:: Chris — 2/12/2008 @ 7:42 pm
44: First off, this is my last post on this thread, since: (1) I hijacked it — it’s about Zorn’s hiring, not Campbell’s progress, (2) nobody else cares anyway, and (3) it’s apparent that we’re not going to come to much of an agreement.
First, I’m fully aware of what the shotgun formation does and doesn’t entail, thank you. I’m also aware that, under his guidance, there were at least seven completed throws of 30 yards or more — in one season to one receiver. (To Moss in ‘05. Also, keep in mind that those were just completions, not attempts, and they’re just the ones to Moss that I can remember off the top of my head for one season. These are NOT counting short passes that Moss ran for long gains; they’re legitimate deep throws. The ones I’m thinking of: two @DAL, one vs. SFO, two vs. NYG, one vs. DAL, one @SEA.) In fact, those deep throws were a huge part of the team’s success that year. So I’m not sure where you got the idea that Gibbs 2.0 wouldn’t throw it deep, when everybody stated that the way to beat the Redskins was to double-team Moss so they wouldn’t beat you deep (and to stop Portis). I’d agree that there have been fewer deep throws the previous two seasons, but I think that’s partially because Moss has been hurt. Even so, there were several deep completions to Cooley and Moss this year, and at least one to Randle El.
I’m also aware of the difference between throwing to the flat and throwing short routes to receivers downfield. Campbell was doing the latter pretty much the whole game against Dallas, and with pretty good success, I might add. Portis had the most catches of any back on the team, and he was only fourth on the team in receptions. They did throw a decent number of screens, but a lot of their receivers’ receptions were on ins, outs, and some slants.
You state that “some might argue that playing under multiple schemes in college would make him more . . . smart,” which is funny, because the whole reason I brought up the discontinuities in Campbell’s coaching was to refute your unsupported notion that he’s “not the sharpest tool in the shed.” I guess we at least agree on that, then?
I have no idea why you’re bringing up Campbell’s record at Auburn — it’s a complete red herring. In fact, one of the (many) things I really love about FO is that most people here don’t judge quarterbacks on the performance of 40-some other players, and I’m well aware that Campbell was playing with some real talent. But the only reference in this thread to Campbell’s college performance (other than noting the fact that he was learning a lot of different systems) came from Matt in post 35, and the excerpt he quoted was focusing on Campbell’s individual achievements, not the team’s record.
I’d say Campbell was “beaten out” if Collins were to be the starter indefinitely. However, I don’t think there’s ever been any question about who’s penciled to start next year. Furthermore, I’ve already pointed out that even if you do consider him to have been “beaten out,” that’s not really a strong argument against him for two reasons. First, Collins was outperforming the vast majority of starting quarterbacks over that time: he finished 3rd in the league in DVOA, and he made it to 20th in DPAR despite starting only 4 games. If you project his DPAR for an entire season, I’m pretty sure Collins would have finished with more DPAR than anyone but Brady or Manning. (That’s using DPAR/game, which isn’t exact because Collins played part of the Chicago game, and some guys like Romo didn’t finish out their last game.) I’m not arguing that Collins is really the third-best quarterback in the league, but he basically played like it for that month. So saying that Campbell is hopeless because he didn’t do as well as Collins did in that stretch is to say that 29 of the other starting QBs in the league are hopeless, too.
The second reason why starting Collins against Seattle isn’t really a strong indictment of him is because that move has been made plenty of times, even when the “regular” starter is KNOWN to be better than the backup (as I ALSO stated previously). It happened to Drew Bledsoe and Trent Green when the were still worth something (with NE and STL, respectively), and even to Steve Young with the 49ers.
To this point, I’ve left your assertions about Campbell’s release unadressed because, like most people here, I don’t watch enough tape to be able to reliably judge release times (other than obvious examples at either extreme, like Leftwich or Marino). Maybe you do, and Campbell’s release is slower than my grandma when she jogs laps in the swimming pool. All I know is that it was quick enough to have moderate (but not superlative) success in most phases of their passing offense.
I know he fumbled a lot last year. I’ve acknowledged it every time you’ve brought it up.
So, in sum, here’s a young quarterback who’s dealt with a lot of coaching changes, who ranked 20th in DVOA and 16th in DPAR (despite missing four games), and who projects quite well in David Lewin’s forecasting system. Is he going to reach Brady/Manning level? Probably not. But I think it’s reasonable to suggest that he’ll turn out to be slightly above average, and certainly good enough that there was no reason to randomly bash him in a thread about a completely different subject.
I think it’s waaay too early to start deciding how teams will do next year. Teams still need to draft, sign free agents, and lose players for the year during preseason. That’s not to say I necessarily think the ‘Skins will do well next year — if a gun were to my head, I’d say they’ll miss the playoffs — but I’m not sure why you’re making that prediction. (By the way, DAL, PHI, and NYG also play in “the hardest division in the NFL,” so I’m not sure why that fact would lead you to believe that those three teams will do better than WAS.)
45: To tell you the truth, I’m not a fan of making personal judgments of other commenters. I do remember that Chris was an outspoken critic of Mike Vick, but he certainly wasn’t alone in that area. But regardless of Chris’s pigment preferences, I enjoyed your phrasing. : )
Having pretty much ruined a thread, I’ll now resume my long-held status of obsessive reader, infrequent commenter.
:: dmb — 2/12/2008 @ 9:50 pm
Throwing a 1 yard pass where Randel El runs for 36 more yards doesn’t mean that Campbell throws a pretty deep ball. It means he completed a slant or a screen and his WR picked up a whole lot of yards almost like a long handoff running play.
Counting the Redskins deep throws in 2005 on your fingers doesn’t impress me ( and Campbell wasn’t even the QB anyway).
Campbell has had the same head coach his entire career in the pros.
It is natural for a player to have different coaches in highschool and college than the pros.
If Brady Quinn got a new head coach next year you don’t say, ” well poor Brady will be on to his 3rd coach in 3 years next year”.
If you don’t watch the Redskins and Campbell, then why comment on him?
How did that whole Mike Vick thing turn out… or Eli Manning?
:: Chris — 2/13/2008 @ 9:10 am
I think it is unfair that every NFL rookie has to change schemes from college to the pros. I mean just 4 year earlier they were changing schemes from Highschool.
You could make a decent argument that playing under multiple schemes would help the player, rather than jumping to Campbells defense.
:: Chris — 2/13/2008 @ 9:13 am
Chris,
You’ve said a great deal many things I’d disagree with strongly, though will limit (for now) to your discussion on Campbell’s throwing of short passes. You said:
“Throwing a 1 yard pass where Randel El runs for 36 more yards doesn’t mean that Campbell throws a pretty deep ball. It means he completed a slant or a screen and his WR picked up a whole lot of yards almost like a long handoff running play.”
Re: YACs,
The Redskins had 1570 YACs on 525 attempts or just ~ 3 YAC per Attempt. By comparison — and I choose the Cowboys because I a) think you’re a Cowboys fan b) think most people believe that their quarterback is good and c) their offense is good — had 1761 YACs on 531 or ~3.2 YAC per Attempt. It would stand to reason that perhaps Tony Romo benefited more from YACs than did Jason Campbell.
Re: Distance of JC’s passes…
JC completed 250 passes last year. Their distribution ON DISTANCE TRAVELED IN THE AIR (not distance gained by receivers after the catch) was:
53 completed traveling behind LOS (21.2%)
148 completed traveling between 1-10 yards (59.2%)
37 completed traveling 11-20 yards (14.8%)
7 completed traveling 21-30 yards (2.8%)
2 completed traveling 31-40 yards (.8%)
3 completed traveling 41+ yards (1.2%)
Tony Romo, by comparison 335 total completions:
42 behind LOS (12.5%)
210 1-10 yards (62.6%)
58 11-20 yards (17.3%)
18 21-30 yards (5.3%)
7 31-40 yards (2%)
0 41+ yards (0%)
So, to sum up, 80% of the passes Jason Campbell threw did not travel past the 10 yard line. 75% of Tony Romo’s completions did not travel beyond the 10 yard line. Just to increase the comparison, that number was 75% for Eli Manning, 79% for Donovan McNabb, 78% for Tom Brady, 80% for Brett Favre, and 76% for Peyton Manning.
:: Skin Patrol — 2/13/2008 @ 1:14 pm
I guess everybody that hates the Redskins is a cowboys fan in the eyes of a redskin fan :)
So Campbell completed over 20% of his passes behind the line? Isn’t the object to move the ball Forward? ( Hah)
I think there are a number of problems with your stats. Romo was 13-3 and leading in games and therefore didn’t have to throw the ball downfield as much. Tony Romo made back to back pro bowls in his first years as a starting QB, and Campbell was seated for Todd Collins late in the year. Campbell isn’t nearly as good as Romo.
I also think clumping completions of 1-10 yards is too large of a category. There is much more of a difference between completing a 1 yard smoke screen, and a 9 yard out route than say a 20 yard pass and a 30 yard pass.
If you had the distribution data on completions 0-2 yards, 3-6 yards, and 7-10 yards, I would bet that Campbell is still amoung one of the league leaders in throwing simple short passes.
Also look at RAC yard percentage of each reception, not just total Rac yards.
Picking up 10 RAC yards on a 20 yard throw is still a lesser percentage yield than throwing a 1 yard pass and picking up 6 Rac yards.
You don’t need fancy stats to show that Campbell played in a Chad Pennington like offense with lots of dinks and dunks. All you have to do is watch the games.
:: Chris — 2/13/2008 @ 1:38 pm
Chris,
“I think there are a number of problems with your stats. Romo was 13-3 and leading in games and therefore didn’t have to throw the ball downfield as much. Tony Romo made back to back pro bowls in his first years as a starting QB, and Campbell was seated for Todd Collins late in the year. Campbell isn’t nearly as good as Romo.”
The Cowboys were a pass first, pass second, pass late offense. I don’t doubt that the Cowboys needed to pass deep less than the Skins, since they were 13-3, but they did anyways. The Cowboys passed the ball 54% of the time over the course of the season. The Redskins passed the ball 49% of the time.
This wasn’t a comparison to prove that JC is better than Romo, which you must know, since Tony Romo has outplayed Campbell the past two years (hardly a controversial statement). It was merely meant to show that JC was well within the normal limits regarding how often he’s thrown the ball down the field.
“Also look at RAC yard percentage of each reception, not just total Rac yards.”
I provided the YACs per attempt, and the Cowboys were better. Here are the YACs per reception: Redskins had 4.9 YACs per completion, Cowboys had 5.16.
43.3% of the Redskins receiving yards came after the catch. 41.1% of the Cowboys receiving yards came after the catch. I doubt the statistical relevance of that amount.
There is nothing fancy about these stats. And I watched every game Jason Campbell played last year, and my intuition is different from yours. I guess reasonable minds can disagree about what they witnessed, which is why I’m such a fan of stats.
:: Skin Patrol — 2/13/2008 @ 10:01 pm
For the record, here are those same YAC percentage of total receiving yards for various teams:
Patriots 42.2%
Giants 41.2%
Packers 51.4%
Eagles 45.2%
etc.
:: Skin Patrol — 2/13/2008 @ 10:06 pm
52. Gibbs wanted a power running offense that threw the ball more or less when they needed to. The offense was full of screens and passes behind the LOS. Running a conservative offene does limit turnovers, but it also more or less restricts potential as well with that lower beta.
You didn’t address my point about 1-10 yards being a pretty large segement to look at.
I would bet that Campbell completed a higher percentage of his passes in the 0-2 yard range to go along with that high percentage of passes completed behind the LOS.
I don’t neccesarily think RAC yards are a perfect or even very good reflection of the aggressiveness of the offenses.
If Randy Moss blows by his defender and catches a 40 yard pass and then runs the last 20 yards, that is 20 rac yards on a 60 yard play or 33%.
If Santana Moss catches a 1 yard smoke screen and picks up 5 yards that is 5 Rac yards on a 6 yard gain or 87% Rac yards on a play that took no “read” from campbell.
Screens completed behind the line also highlight this point.
Gibbs more or less shielded his young quarterback from NFL defenses.
:: Chris — 2/14/2008 @ 10:34 am
It must be easy going through life and never being wrong
:: mrparker — 2/14/2008 @ 6:25 pm
54 (Chris): OK, you’re all over the place here. First of all, I think you’re arguing that a higher percentage of YAC would indicate a QB making throws, but are somehow using this point against Campbell, even though Skin Patrol showed in post #52 that the Cowboys and Redskins have similar percentages. But you also make the point about a 60-yard pass to Moss that has 33% YAC, which doesn’t really make any sense in the context of the argument.
But my personal favorite part is this:
If you truly believe that’s the case, why are you holding it against Campbell? If his coach ran an offense that forced him into an excessive amount of dumpoffs and quick screens, how in the world does that prove Campbell is not an adequate QB? All it does prove is that Campbell is capable of running a “safe” offense.
:: Eddo — 2/15/2008 @ 1:45 pm