Cerrato: Zorn to remain Redskins coach for remainder of season
Redskins executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato said on his radio show Friday morning that Jim Zorn will remain the head coach of the Washington Redskins for the remainder of the season.
"Let me start by making a few things very perfectly clear: Jim Zorn is the head coach of the Washington Redskins, and will be for the rest of this season, and hopefully into the future," Cerrato said on ESPN 980's Inside the Red Zone.
In his opening remarks, which lasted about 15 minutes, Cerrato also defended the team's organizational structure, called Steve Largent's recent comments about the front office "off the wall," and said this week's news that Sherm Lewis would call the plays was meant to help Zorn.
"The team is tight, the relationships are tight, and we're just trying to prepare to win a game Monday Night AND excite the fans and get the fans back excited about this football team," Cerrato said. "We just want to beat the Philadelphia Eagles Monday night. That's what we're trying to accomplish through all these other things that are going on....Everybody's frustrated. The owner's frustrated. He wants nothing more than to win for the fans. For the fans. He wants to please these fans, and he's SO frustrated because of the struggles."
Later, he called Zorn's future "totally crystal clear," and several times, he expressed frustration with the media.
"There's been a lot of false rumors, media speculation, unnamed sources out there all the time," he said. "I hired Jim, along with Dan Snyder. And obviously, OBVIOUSLY we're all very disappointed by the season performance thus far. In fact, Dan constantly talks about how disappointed he is for the fans. And we've got great fans. We feel the frustration for the fans, and we need the fans big-time Monday night. We want to entertain them, we want to make them proud, we want to make them happy [for] this football team.
"And there's a lot of media people like you and everybody else out there that says Dan Snyder needs to come out and talk, Dan needs to say this, do that. Dan has never spoken to the media during the season for over a decade now. And Dan's thing is, he feels that during the season, the stage belongs to the head of football operations, the coaching staff, the players. That's why he doesn't talk, all right?
"The frustration is very high, everywhere around here, but the relationships internally within this organization quite frankly remain the same. Later today Dan and I and Jim have our weekly Friday lunch, like we always do, and like Dan's done forever with the head coach, to go over the upcoming game. You know, we'll sit there, we'll have lunch, we'll bring in our pizza or Dan's health food and all this, and chitchat about, you know, 'All right Jim, tell us about the game, what do you think about Philly, what are we gonna do, how are we gonna do this?' You know, and that's what we've always done over time."
Cerrato declined to mention Largent by name, but focused in on the receiver's assertion that Zorn was asked to win with players and coaches he didn't choose. He also managed to ding the Hall of Fame receiver for not winning a Super Bowl ring.
"Maybe his friend thought that he was protecting Jim because he thought something was going to happen to his career for whatever [reason], but I think his friend forgets this: that we were a top 5 defense [when Zorn was hired]," Cerrato said. "We had just been to the playoffs. Last year we had four Pro Bowlers on offense. And in Jim's contract, he controls everything over his staff. And the thing about it is, the other thing is that his friend doesn't mention was that Jim worked with all these coaches for a week prior to becoming the head coach, and he said during the interview, 'Those are my guys, I want those guys, those are the guys I want, I don't want to go hire anybody else.'
Cerrato also took issue with Largent's shot at new play-caller Sherm Lewis, who had been volunteering at a senior center before being hired by the Redskins earlier this month.
"You know what, you don't forget all the things that you've learned over 20-some years of experience in the same offense," Cerrato said. "And those four Super Bowl rings are very pretty on his [fingers], and I don't think [Largent] has a one. So the guy has a ton of experience, he's been in battles, so it upsets me very much that [Largent] wants to attack what this guy has done in the past. What he's been doing now compared to what he's done in the past. You don't forget how to ride a bike if you hadn't rode your bike in four years. So that was very, very frustrating, some of those comments, because it's to me off-the-wall comments."
Source: Washington Post
