Vinny Says Zorn's Staying

Well, Jim Zorn's day didn't start out great.  When he tuned in this morning to his boss's non-award-winning radio show, he heard Vinny "Mumbles" Cerrato give him the ol' vote of confidence.  Gulp.

Said Mumbles: "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."

Into the future?  Doesn't the prospect of an 85-year-old Jim Zorn skating the sidelines on his hoverboard just warm the cockles of your heart?

It's too bad mean old Vinny had to ruin it by throwing that qualifying "hopefully" in there.  Booo!

It's also a good thing that Mumbles made it perfectly clear that Jim Zorn is currently the head coach.  Given all the emasculation and stripping-down over the last week, it's not entirely clear what his role is other than as the person who calls pointless challenges and inefficiently uses timeouts.

But it's that "will be for the rest of the season" part that's the news.  They're committing to Zorn for the rest of the year?  Really?  Even though there's a bye week coming?

Did Mike Shanahan say he wouldn't sleep with another man's job?  Can Danny not afford to pay off the balance of Zorny's contract, owing to his running Six Flags into the ground?

Either way, the vote of confidence is usually the beginning of the end for a coach.  It's the point where the team tacitly admits in public what everyone suspects: the thought's crossed their mind.  If it hadn't, why comment?

There wasn't any asterisk in Vinny's statement, a further qualifier that said "at least for this week."  But that's implicit in every coaching vote of confidence.

So on some level, Jim Zorn probably liked hearing the news.  On the other?  He's probably getting ready to empty his condo.