Redskins seek calm amidst the storm

Let’s start at the beginning of this maelstrom that has engulfed the Washington Redskins.

Jim Zorn had called the plays for the Redskins in all 22 of his games as coach. But after Sunday’s 14-6 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs - Washington’s third in four weeks to a previously winless team - executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato forced Zorn to hand those duties to newly hired consultant Sherman Lewis.

The next day, Zorn said he would relay those plays to the quarterback for Monday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

On Wednesday, Zorn revealed offensive coordinator Sherman Smith actually would be the conduit but that Zorn would handle the blitz pickups and the protection schemes for quarterback Jason Campbell, who did so last year during Zorn’s first season.

And by the way, Campbell was reinstalled as the starter after getting benched by Zorn in favor of veteran backup Todd Collins at halftime of the loss to the Chiefs.

Confused?

Adding even more craziness to the situation, Zorn’s best friend and longtime teammate, Hall of Fame receiver Steve Largent, went on a Seattle radio station Wednesday and said Redskins owner Dan Snyder was trying to get the coach to resign by taking away his playcalling responsibilities. Largent added that Zorn considered stepping down, a statement Zorn later sidestepped. The former congressman also said that naming Lewis - who hadn’t called plays since 2001 and had been out of football since 2004 - the play caller was “a joke.”

Zorn didn’t second Largent’s comments, but the embattled coach knows he could be fully out of a job if the Redskins, 6-2 at midseason in 2008, fall to 2-5 with a loss to the Eagles going into their bye week.

“I’m not naive about what’s going on, and yet I have to hold back on any feelings,” Zorn said. “I need to have composure. I need to understand what the reality of the situation is. I think my players expect me to rise up. We expect them to play under adverse conditions. I’m here for them. I gotta make sure I give them what they need.”

Receiver Santana Moss is impressed by his coach’s composure, saying, “I don’t know if I could have handled it the way he’s handling it.”

As for the 67-year-old Lewis, who was calling bingo and delivering meals to senior citizens in Michigan just 16 days ago, there’s only so much he can give.

While Zorn said it “absolutely” bothered him not to be running the meeting at which this week’s passing game began to be installed, the coach said Lewis made only a couple of minor suggestions that were incorporated into the base game plan Tuesday.

“He had a couple ideas, a couple [pass] patterns that he would like to have in, and we got those in,” Zorn said. “Our players are [still] executing the offense as it’s designed. There’s not a lot of change.”

Added Campbell, “There are going to be some new plays in there, but we haven’t reinvented the offense.”

Collins, disappointed that he didn’t get a chance to start after playing last week for the first time since the 2007 playoffs, said it’s too soon to know what kind of impact Lewis, who has even more experience in the West Coast offense than Zorn, can have.

“He’s been in front of us for 45 minutes, so I really can’t make any declarations about his philosophy,” Collins said. “He kinda jumped right in just like he’s been doing it the previous six weeks. He’s familiar with the terminology, and he’s seen our base plays a lot. Calling the right plays at the right time, there’s an art to that. You look around the league and there are guys that excel at it, and sometimes they excel at it because they have the best players executing the plays well.”

Campbell and Co. executed so poorly while being shut out in the first half by Kansas City’s last-ranked defense that Zorn made the switch. The quarterback, whom Snyder and Cerrato tried to replace with Jay Cutler and Mark Sanchez during the offseason, was relaxed enough to joke about being on a short leash since March.

“You would’ve thought we were 4-2 the way we walked out the door for practice this morning,” Campbell said. “I don’t know what it is, but guys have found that new energy, a new relief, a new relaxation. You gotta relax and just go out there and have some fun. You can’t go out there playing the game frustrated. You can’t go out there worrying about trying to be perfect not worry about the mistakes, not worrying about getting booed - just play football. For us, there’s nothing to lose.”

Except their coach.