Passing is failing Redskins’ offense

Jim Zorn has no trouble identifying what has gone wrong for his once-red hot Washington Redskins.

The defense and running game remain among the NFL’s best. That leaves the first-year coach to point the finger at his expertise.

“It’s really been on the offensive passing game side,” said Zorn, who brought that part of the Redskins’ scheme with him from Seattle while leaving the running attack and the defense relatively intact. “That’s what’s keeping us from scoring points.”

Indeed, touchdowns have been as rare for Washington lately as balmy days. During a 1-3 November slide that dropped the Redskins from 6-2 to 7-5, Washington scored just four touchdowns. The Redskins haven’t scored 30 points in a game all year, joining only the Bengals and Lions, who are 1-22-1 combined. Injuries haven’t been the culprit - the offense has lost just one start to injury, when left tackle Chris Samuels rested his knee against the Lions.

Zorn, a half-full sort, remains confident in his West Coast passing offense.

“The schemes are good,” Zorn said. “We have to execute better. It’s a major frustration, but we’re on our way.”

In the meantime, frustration is building among the offensive players.

“It’s getting kind of old to be out there and not being able to put up points, especially with all the firepower we have,” said receiver Santana Moss, who had touchdown catches in each of the first three games but just two since.

Moss said the lack of big plays makes a big difference. The Redskins completed 10 passes of at least 20 yards - and two over 50 - during their 4-0 tear. They completed just four in their November swoon, none as long as 30 yards.

“You make a big play here and there, and the game will just change because you put a team in a situation where they’re kind of stunned that you made that kind of play,” Moss said.

Added tight end Chris Cooley, who has 66 catches but just one touchdown: “We don’t know what’s going on. I’m frustrated. We’ve played like [crap] four weeks in a row.”

The Redskins generated 386 yards two weeks ago at struggling Seattle but managed just 20 points, six fewer than their average from Weeks 2 to 5.

Quarterback Jason Campbell said “expectations went through the roof” when Washington reeled off those consecutive victories over New Orleans, Arizona, Dallas and Philadelphia. Campbell, who posted a passer rating of at least 103.1 in three of those games, was under 73.5 in all three November defeats, leading Zorn to say his quarterback isn’t “entirely failing.”

That’s typical candor from a 55-year-old man who has played or coached the position since high school.

“There are going to be growing pains anytime you get a new offense, [but] it’s frustrating because we know what we’re capable of,” center Casey Rabach said.

Fullback Mike Sellers had a different take on the early success.

“Yeah, you’d expect us to be scoring more points now, but no one expected us to do as well as we did early this season,” Sellers said. “We’ve already exceeded expectations.”

Rabach said defenses, which early on had no film of a Zorn offense because he had never even been a coordinator before, might have caught on to the Redskins’ tendencies. Others cited the quality of the defenses of the recent opponents. Pittsburgh, Dallas and the New York Giants all rank in the top 10 along with this week’s foe, Baltimore.

“Not to say we need to be graded against the curve, because you’re graded by whether you won or lost, but if we were struggling to score 20 points a week against the bottom-ranked defenses week after week, I think you could say maybe there’s a real problem,” guard Pete Kendall said.

Still, Zorn said might have put too much on his players’ plates too soon.

“Each week, as we try to grow in our game plan, I’m always torn between that fine line of pushing the envelope a little bit or [backing] off and not work so much on the things that I’d like to do,” he said. “It’s obvious, in these last several games, we can’t do it all. There is that balance there, and I probably have tipped the scales. Those are things you find out as you go along. I’m trying to push it. Now maybe I take a step back.”