'Skins must now fine-tune offense

GRANT PAULSEN: With the pieces in hand, Redskins' offense must put it together

Date published: 7/5/2009

VOLUNTARY work- outs are all but over, and by this time a week from now, golf outings will be a distant memory. For the Washington Redskins, another active off-season is about to come to a close.

The refurbished Redskins, who led all NFL teams in free-agency spending this offseason, report to training camp in 25 days. Head coach Jim Zorn will be calling the shots at the team's headquarters in Ashburn for the second straight season.

A former NFL quarterback who has mentored passers and coached offense his entire life, Zorn--not the players he teaches--may be the single biggest key to the Redskins' getting back to the playoffs this season.

Zorn is responsible for designing a scheme that will give the Redskins a consistent offense. He can rest easy knowing that his team's defense (fourth-best in the NFL in 2008) will keep his team in games.

But in order to win more than the eight games they won last year, the Redskins must make more big plays and score more points.

The Redskins' offense finished last season as the NFL's 19th-best. That lack of firepower won't work if you want to play late into January.

Last season's offensive struggles were nothing new, which is curious considering that Washington's last three head coaches were known for their offensive brilliance.

Steve Spurrier, Joe Gibbs and Jim Zorn have spent most of their lives in offensive huddles or scribbling plays on a chalkboard. But none has turned a talented collection of players into a unit that scored points in bunches.

The Redskins haven't finished a season with a top-10 offense since Norv Turner was coach in 1999. Washington's offense has ranked 20th or worse four times in the ensuing 10 years. That's tough to fathom when you look back at some of its game-breaking athletes.

Some coaches don't possess rosters with the talent that it takes to design a system that can score 20-plus points a game. Zorn isn't one of those coaches.

He has a strong-armed quarterback who can make every throw that his playbook calls for in Jason Campbell. He has one of the NFL's best running backs in Clinton Portis, a workhorse of a rusher who amassed 1,487 yards last season.

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Date published: 7/5/2009