Bonehead of the Week: Week 4

In the NFL you have many types of teams that fans tend to organize privately into categories. You have your elite teams in your Steelers, Vikings, and your Giants, strong NFL matchups where you know you will have to play your best to beat them. You have your average teams like the Broncos and the Bears, teams you are not sure whether you will win or lose against. You have your mediocre teams like the Browns and the Raiders, teams where you know you just have to show up to beat them. Various types of teams that organize into all different categories

And then you have the Detroit Lions, the bottom of the barrel. Up till now, they have been viewed as the undisputed worst team in the league. I say 'up till now' because the opinion has since changed.

Last Sunday, the Detroit Lions won their first game in 19 straight losses by defeating the Redskins. The score was 19-14.

This game wasn't even close. By halftime the score was Washington 0, Lions 13. The Lions had kept the Redskins from scoring for the entire first half of the game. The Detroit Lion's defense, rebuilt in one year from players from Free Agency, rookies, and rejects from other teams. They somehow banded together and kept the Redskins from scoring for 30 minutes. While that is something to be very proud of for the Lions, it instantly makes the Redskins the laughingstock of the NFL. Not only that, but it shows just how far the Redskins had fallen from the pride of their past.

No one can receive a greater blame for this than Jim Zorn.

His QB had been taking a lot of heat these past few weeks, and Jim Zorn chose this game to try to stop all of that talk for good. He seemed to come into this game with the predetermination that his team was better than Detroit, and made decisions based on that instead of the current situation at hand. None of these risks seemed to work in his favor at all, nor were they needed. In the end, it lost the game for the Skins.

For example. 4th and goal, 1 yard away from a TD on the first drive for the Skins. Instead of electing for the easy field goal to put the Skins ahead by three, Jim Zorn elects to go for the TD and the Lions held Clinton Portis at the one yard line, giving a free drive to the Lions. After the turnover, Matthew Stafford drove his team right back down the field for a touchdown, turning three points for the Skins into 7 points for the Lions while in the process chewing up the rest of the 1st quarter.

Except on that drive around the 33 yard line of the Redskins on that drive, the Lions committed offensive pass interference on an incomplete pass on a 3rd and 3. Jim Zorn had a decision. You deny the penalty and give the Lions a 50 yard field goal on a 4th and 3, or you take the penalty and put them out of field goal range at the risk of them picking up a first down. Jim Zorn decided to take a chance, and he paid for it. After a first down pass from Stafford, the Lions marched the last 30 yards for a TD, picking up a momentum wouldn't lose for the rest of the game.

Those are two mistakes right off the bat that give the Lions a 7 point lead to begin the game. Both of them are on the head of Jim Zorn.

From there on, he just gave the ball to his QB again and again, confident that he would eventually come through for his team. Instead, Jason Campbell fumbled the ball constantly, threw a costly INT late in the game, and cost his team points time and time again. When Jim Zorn turned to the running game, Clinton Portis only showed that he was on the downside of his career, and he has left no one behind him able to serve as a replacement or even a change-of-pace back. It's a recipe for disaster.

The real problem though came on the defense, which gave up third downs time and time again thanks to the arm of Matthew Stafford. I want to blame this game on the offense, but in reality there was only a few times they got a hold on the football, especially in the 1st half of the game. The Lions offense did anything, absolutely anything they wanted to the Redskins, and they didn't seem to care less. They ran the same bland plays over and over again, with the same defensive coverages that brought no pressure on rookie QB Matthew Stafford, and the Lions made them pay for it each and every time.

Now you can blame a little bit of that on injuries, especially to Albert Haynesworth early in the 2nd quarter. You can say that Clinton Portis is done. You can say that Matthew Stafford played an inspired game. You can make a lot of excuses for the Redskins. At the same time, Jim Zorn let his team lose against the Detroit Lions. He lost against the worst team in the NFL.

That's enough to make him my Bonehead of the Week. Congratulations Jim Zorn.

Test test test.