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"I do know that they couldn't have been reading the papers or what was on the Internet," Zorn said. "Well, maybe they were, but they weren't doing what everybody was writing and saying they should be doing."

Remember, this was supposed to be Gregg Williams' job and when his interviews went south, the smart money switched to Jim Fassel.

Zorn, who had never been a coordinator in the NFL, was hired to be Washington's offensive coordinator when Joe Gibbs retired — and then waited and waited ... and finally Snyder and Cerrato decided to interview him for the top spot while they were waiting to talk to Giants' defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo after the Super Bowl.

Zorn basically won the competition.

It definitely helped that Zorn has the same family values as the departed Gibbs, another man who was honest and fair with everyone. Granted, he's never been a head coach before, but being honest is always a great fallback approach whenever the bad times come.

What is fascinating, too, is that Joe Bugel — the man who coached the Hogs over 20 years ago, was with Gibbs and also a head coach on his own — remains on the staff, proving that Zorn is open-minded and has his ego in check. "I had Buges speak to the team and talk about the running game," Zorn said. "I'm glad that he wanted to be part of our offense. I know he's not here simply playing out the string."

Zorn's hiring goes against the grain of what Snyder has done in the past. The owner wanted a general type after Norv Turner and hired Marty Schottenheimer, then fired him for Steve Spurrier, who was considered the brightest offensive mind in college football. When that experiment failed miserably, Snyder turned back the clock and coaxed Gibbs, the Hall of Famer, to restore the Redskins to greatness.

Can Redskins QB Jason Campbell adjust to his third different offense in four NFL season? (Luis M. Alvarez / Associated Press)

With Zorn, who has a passion for mountain biking, climbing and skiing, and generally being as fit as he was when he was 18, the Redskins are embarking on something totally new while keeping many of the coaching parts — like Bugel and defensive coordinator Greg Blache and six other holdover assistants — from Gibbs' staff.

"It's not like a lot was broken around here last year," Cerrato said. "We did make the playoffs and once Jim starting working with some of these guys while we were waiting to interview Spagnuolo, he realized that a lot of them were his kind of coaches, too."

The NFC East is arguably the toughest division in football, but the Redskins did beat both the Giants and Cowboys, plus the Vikings and Bears, in December to finish 9-7. To improve the passing game, the Redskins drafted two receivers, Michigan State's Devin Thomas (out two weeks with a hamstring pull) and Oklahoma's Malcolm Kelly, plus USC tight end Fred Davis. They have a big-time runner in Clinton Portis and quality receivers in Santana Moss and Antwaan Randle El. It also doesn't hurt that former Dolphins pass rusher Jason Taylor, the league's defensive player of the year in 2006, is now with the team.

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Really, the defense should be fine, the offensive line is full of veterans and there's also quality depth. The only concern is: Can Zorn call the plays to make Jason Campbell and this offense click and win?

Only once in his NFL career has Zorn called the plays in a game. He was working for good friend Bobby Ross in Detroit when the offensive coordinator became deathly sick overnight and Zorn was asked to substitute. The Lions didn't win that one, either.

He can't wait, though, to be standing on the sidelines on opening night — Sept. 4 — against the world champion New York Giants and calling his first game, installing his first script of 15 plays, much like Mike Holmgren does in Seattle. Has he thought about how he might look on camera, holding his laminated sheet of plays? Will he be emotional and go nuts when things go wrong? Holmgren does that.

"I really haven't thought much about that," Zorn said. "Mike is such a competitor and that's how he acts. I am, too, but I just don't think I'll be like him."

Told that several of the veterans told me they liked him, Zorn thought for a moment before saying, "It's not so much that I want to be liked. It's that I want to be respected and when I talk to someone, I want them to listen."

Zorn was a pretty nifty quarterback in his days with the Seahawks, passing for 10,000 yards over a three-year period and eventually earning a spot in the team's ring of honor. "I doubt that many of my players even know that I played," Zorn said with a laugh. "One guy did say they found me on a football card. It's probably worth 50 cents."

When his playing career was over, Chuck Knox wouldn't give him a coaching job, forcing him to try his luck in the college game at places like Boise State, Utah State, and Minnesota before returning to the NFL as an assistant coach in 1997. He spent the last six seasons with the Seahawks, mostly as Matt Hasselbeck's quarterback coach. Zorn once described his coaching life: "I've always taken the hard road to eventually get to where I've gotten."

Although some of the fans would like to think there is a quarterback competition, considering how well Todd Collins did down the stretch last season, Campbell is Washington's starter and during practices has looked the part.

Campbell figures that he has had eight different offensive coaches in his last nine years of football, including three in his first four NFL seasons, this being year four. Gone is the Gibbs offense to be replaced by the West-Coast attack. Luckily, Campbell said he ran a West-Coast offense during his senior year at Auburn when the Tigers went 11-0.

"What I'm hoping for now," Campbell said, "is for Zorn to be here for a long time so that we can do some great things together. I want to be a Pro Bowl quarterback. You look at guys like Peyton and Brady and McNabb. Well, those guys have been in the same system for years with the same coaches. I mean, they know the offense as well as the coaches do.

"I'm hoping to get to just that point. That I'm out there simply playing football and that everybody on the offense is all on the same page. The greatest thing for any quarterback is stability. That's all I'm asking for."