I think Jim Zorn is a great head football coach.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by 44Deezel

Fine. Feed him. But why not develop him into a passing threat as well, especially since our WRs are so mediocre? And I don't know how anyone could expect Portis to hold up all year with the recent injuries and his overall tread. Because they relied so much on Portis, no one was able to step up when he and the O line started to wear down. Dallas has a balanced running attack and a home run hitter in Felix Jones. I think he was injured in the second half. The Eagles pass 70% of the time and have a multi-dimensional back who can score from anywhere on the field, whether the ball is handed to him or thrown to him. All I'm saying is we have 2 1000 yard backs and a guy like Rock who can make things happen when he gets the ball in space (as evident from his kick-off returns for TDs). And Portis fumbles too, so big whoop. I think and hope Zorn will mix things up this year.



The Dolphins and Chargers do it by design and for long gains, while the Skins checked down for 5 yard gains on 3rd and 10. In the playoff game against the Ravens, the Dolphins went 80 yards for a score on the opening drive without throwing a single pass to a WR (all passes went to RBs, including their third back). Portis falling down to catch a 5 yard dink counts in your stats, but it doesn't tell the true story of our offense.



And he would believe this because? When has Sellers shown the skills to be a goal line back? And if LBS is all that counts, then give the ball to Samuels. Zorn did it to spite Portis. And I don't think Zorn sucks. I think there's more evidence to indicate he WILL suck than there is to indicate he will be GREAT. Like I said, I hope I am wrong.

A lot of these assertions contradict each other. You can't claim lack of creativity on offense and then question Zorn's desire to turn Mike Sellers into a GL back...because he's never been a goal line back before. That's what creativity is, it's not necessarily about being unconventional, just about doing different things to try to maximize the value of your personnel. In this respect, I think Zorn is quite creative.

What evidence do you have to defend the claim that the Skins checked down more often than other teams? Speicifally, how are they different than the Dolphins or Chargers in this respect (outside of the misbelief that some teams use their backs aggressively, but when other teams do the exact same thing they are being too conservative)?

Just to throw a stat out there, the Redskins passing game was up to a yard per attempt more effective when they blocked with 6 as opposed to 5. So if you are wondering why the Redskins don't always use Portis as a receiving threat, I think that might be a good place to start. Not that you can't use both Portis and Betts in obvious passing situations, but if you do, you lose the ability to get one of your young receivers into the game in a critical situation.

I also think you are understating the value of the Betts injury on our offense. I'm really not the biggest Betts fan, and despite the fact that he does all the small things well, he doesn't offer anything that Portis doesn't, but when he went down, you lose a lot of trick play ability in the offense. Zorn was using them together in packages, but once you lose one of them, it's understandable that they moved away from these packages. By the time Betts came back for the Seattle game, you could understand how a team on a two game losing streak was not so worried about trying to get two running backs on the field together (especially since Kelly was healthy for the first time).