Jim Zorn is disappointed that his Redskins won't be playing in next month's playoffs, especially because Washington started the season 4-1 and was 6-2 at midseason. But the first-year coach said just making the playoffs isn't good enough.
"I want to coach a team that is a playoff team, not just a team that gets to the playoffs," Zorn said Monday in his season wrap-up press conference. "I want these guys to be perennial. I don't want it to be a question of, 'Gosh, are we going to make it?' I want us to say, 'Where are we going to be seeded?' But we've got a lot of work to do to get to that point."
With Green Bay, Dallas and Seattle failing to qualify for postseason, the only NFC team that fits Zorn's description is the defending champion New York Giants, who dispatched the Redskins with relative ease in their pair of 2008 matchups. However, Washington beat NFC West champion Arizona and swept wild-card entrant Philadelphia.
"To finish 8-8 is not acceptable," quarterback Jason Campbell said. "We have to find a way to win games we're supposed to win if we're ever going to be an elite team in this league."
Campbell didn't name the games, but the losses to 4-11-1 Cincinnati and 2-14 St. Louis kept Washington from being a 10-6 NFC wild card.
Zorn, who hopes to retain all of his assistants -- although cornerbacks coach Jerry Gray will interview for Detroit's head-coaching vacancy -- doesn't think the Redskins need numerous changes to get better.
"We're not going to make changes wholesale," Zorn said. "We're not going to go ahead and say, 'We'll replace 10 to 15 guys.'"
Left guard Pete Kendall, 35, is the only free agent to be who was a regular all year (cornerback DeAngelo Hall became a starter in December and defensive end Demetric Evans supplanted Jason Taylor because of the former's ill health and ineffectiveness).
However, the Redskins have so many 30-somethings with big salary-cap numbers (Taylor, cornerback Shawn Springs, linebacker Marcus Washington, defensive tackle Cornelius Griffin, offensive tackle Jon Jansen and guard Randy Thomas) as well as the overpaid duo of receiver Antwaan Randle El and cornerback Fred Smoot, that plenty of changes could be coming.
"There are probably going to be some shocking moves this offseason," Campbell said.
One won't be at quarterback. Although Campbell had just five touchdowns compared to six interceptions in the second half of his first 16-game season as the starter, Zorn responded "for sure" when asked if Campbell had done enough to come to camp next summer as the unquestioned starter.
In hopes of producing improvement in 2009, Zorn gave his players lists of goals for the offseason and quoted basketball coaching legend John Wooden, "(He said) 'Don't mistake activity for achievement.' ... My charge to all of our players is to get better. Even the guys that have been around for a lot of years, they can improve."
