Mike Burke
These are not pleasant times along the Capital Beltway, as over/unders are being established as to whose head will be the first to be served on a stick: Redskins coach Jim Zorn’s, or Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen’s.
Zorn most assuredly will be the first to go, even though Friedgen is more directly responsible for the present state of his football program than Zorn is for the state of the football program he figure-heads. And that’s too bad, because Zorn seems like a good guy — a guy you could pull for, but a guy who has no business being an NFL head coach.
Having said that, the constant — current is not applicable here as it is in Maryland’s case — disarray in which the Redskins find themselves, is the work of one man and one man only, and that man is not Vinny Cerrato Washington's executive vice president of football operations. The one man only, of course, is Daniel Snyder, the team owner who sues his season-ticket holders — and based on the performance of this once great football organization from nearly the moment Snyder took over 10 years ago, shouldn’t that be the other way around?
Snyder is the man, not Vinny Cerrato, who makes the personnel decisions; and Snyder is the man who first hired Zorn as his offensive coordinator, even though A.) the Redskins did not yet have a head coach, and B.), Zorn had never been an offensive coordinator. Not long after that, of course, Zorn was hired as the head coach because there isn’t a good head football coach alive who doesn’t believe unemployment is a more viable option than working for Snyder.
Which brings us to the most recent Redskins nadir; and aren’t most people unlucky enough to experience just one? Not the Redskins. They’re the Lays potato chips of nadirs.
Sunday’s 19-14 loss to the Detroit Lions, losers of 19 straight, came one week after the Redskins were booed off their homefield by their hometown fans after an uninspiring 9-7 victory over the winless St. Louis Rams. And while it was the players who heard the boos; while it was the players who felt the boos, be certain it was Daniel Snyder for whom the boos tolled, as well as Jim Zorn’s sad play-calling, which re-emerged as a central character in the loss to the Lions.
Losing to the Lions on Sunday was really no disgrace, because there are going to be a few other teams this season that lose to the Lions too. The disgrace comes in what’s become of the Redskins, who, thanks to Snyder’s money-making genius, continue to be the highest-valued franchise in the NFL, which, fans could one day realize is because they themselves keep going back for more punishment.
Oh, yes, Zorn will soon be leaving the Washington area, perhaps as soon as next week if the Redskins lose to the winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Yet Redskins fans are not likely to be over-celebratory over that, because Zorn’s presence merely scratches the surface as to what ails the Redskins.
As we found out when Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs returned, it just doesn’t matter who coaches the Washington Redskins these days. For until Daniel Snyder no longer owns them, they’ll be a highly profitable franchise, but not a very good team.
As for the Maryland Terps and their embattled coach Ralph Friedgen, 1-3 on the season with two of the losses being particularly galling ones to Middle Tennessee State and Rutgers, let’s cut right to the chase: 14 seniors on the roster. Fourteen! How does this happen?
The Terps are a young team, you say? Well, of course they’re a young team. When you have 116 players in your football program and just 14 of them are seniors, with only one listed as an offensive lineman and one listed as a defensive lineman, yeah, you’re a pretty young team. But how can a head coach who’s been in place for nine seasons allow this to happen?
Friedgen gets the benefit of the doubt on this one because, as Todd Helmick wrote in Saturday’s Sports Magazine, Maryland’s all-time football winning percentage is 53, and Friedgen’s 63 percent ranks fourth for any Maryland coach of more than one season. Not only that, he brought the program back from the abyss of post Len Bias. There are so many great things Maryland football has going for it, beginning with upgrades in facilities and ending with its graduation rate (oh yeah, that), and it’s because Ralph Friedgen is its football coach.
Still, what puts fannies in the seats is wins, not losses to Middle Tennessee State and Rutgers; not to mention a record of 34-31 after going 31-8 the first three seasons.
The natives are restless, which is understandable and a little funny when you consider the sense of entitlement Maryland fans hold for some reason or another. But in fairness to them, this terrible start and what appears to be awful recruiting, certainly falls on Friedgen’s lap. Yet don’t expect him to be going anywhere because a $3-million or so buyout is not something the University of Maryland is interested in paying for the obvious economic reasons, and for the most obvious reason of all: Ralph Friedgen has earned the right to finish his contract.
Entitled Terps fans need to face the music. Jim Tatum’s long gone, and even as absurdly as this season has begun to take shape, Maryland football is what it is and that’s all that it is.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
