I don't intend to make this into a media critic blog or anything like that, but the media coverage of the Redskins is a topic that seems to be of interest to many of the readers here, judging from the hit counts and comments that posts about the media generate. So, here's one more quick word on the Washington Post's coverage of the Redskins.
This time, it's kudos—sort of.
George Solomon, the paper's former sports editor and current Sunday-only columnist, wrote of the overblown, negative reaction to loss to the Giants. First he reiterated the team's sins of commission and omission in the Meadowlands and then he talks about some of the coverage of it:
"This is a playoff team?" asked John Riggins of his cranky cohorts Andy Pollin and Kevin Sheehan. "I see a mushroom cloud of goo."
Pollin added: "They got nothing from their draft picks."
Of Zorn's debut, Riggins said: "Jim Zorn has underestimated what it takes to be a head coach."
"Jim Zorn is in over his head," Mitchell said after the game. "His team was not prepared."
(Note: it's a good thing that Dan Snyder owns the station and controls the message. Those guys might really have let loose otherwise.)
After quoting Riggins, Pollin and the king of cranky, Brian Mitchell, Solomon asks the question:
All this after one game against a championship team? We have a mushroom cloud of goo hanging over the city? The coach in over his head? The quarterback at risk?
Welcome to the NFL -- that, according to old coaches, stands for "Not For Long." But not for long has to be longer than one game, or one season, without the fans or front office hitting the panic button and googling Bill Cowher's name.
He then reminds the reader of Joe Gibbs' 0-5 start in 1981 and we all know how that turned out.
Good for George Solomon for preaching that some degree of patience is in order here. Apparently, however, it doesn't seem that he reads his own newspaper.
He didn't have to transcribe the Red Zebra broadcast to find nattering nabobs of negativity. All he had to do was read Jenkins, Carpenter, and LaCanfora in the Washington Post to find a rush to judgment about the Zorn era.
Still, that detracts just slightly from Solomon larger point of it being way too early to hit the panic button. He just needs to go down the hall and suggest that to the current sports editor.
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