Jim Fassel Comes Clean

Blame Dan Snyder

I just heard a replay of Jim Fassel's early morning interview with Bob Pappa and Randy Cross on Sirius NFL Radio. He was very open about what happened with him in the process of interviewing for the Redskins job, he mentions bloggers though not in the same context as he did yesterday on the John Thompson show.

Sorry, no transcript or link to the interview, if one appears I will post it. Jim is pretty sure he was actually the first to interview for the Redskins job though this contradicts the official timeline, he may be wrong or talking about a less formal discussion he may have had with Dan Snyder or other team officials before the Jim Schwartz interview.

As has been reported earlier, Dan's Redskins One plane was tracked to Arizona several times, they were all for Jim Fassel, not Russ Grimm as was thought at the time. As far as we know there was never any contact between the Redskins and Russ Grimm in this process.

Jim surfaced as that mystery candidate two weeks before the Super Bowl. Jim Fassel endorsed Jim Zorn on offense and Dan went in with talks with Jim Zorn and hired him, still planning on hiring Jim Fassel.

Jim was certain in the next week, the week before the Super Bowl that he was getting the job. So certain that he was continuing to negotiate assistants with Dan Snyder that week. Then going into the Super Bowl Dan went silent on Jim Fassel and then Steve Spagnuolo became hot after his defense pummeled Tom Brady. The Spagnuolo interview and dropout, Ron Meeks' second interview, Steve Mariucci's interview.

After all the chips fell Jim Fassel was still the front runner, then Dan Snyder punked him. This was after Jim did as the owner wanted and kept his talks and interviews with the Redskins under wraps, Jim did not even tell people close to him about this, at the behest of the owner. This makes the out of town fuck buddy analogy even tighter.

To hear Jim Fassel characterize it, Dan had too much time on his hands. Instead of making a decision and living with it and starting to move forward Dan overthought it, started getting ideas and then we got to where we are with Jim Zorn getting promoted. There was no plan.

Redskins blogs came up in the context of blogs being out there and not necessarily being in favor of his candidacy but Jim concluded that thought by laughing at the notion that Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato would take their cues from blogs, this may be something of a retreat from his comments yesterday on DC local radio when he seemed to imply that bloggers, commenters and message board posters got under the skin of Dan Snyder, fomented indecision at Redskins Park and contributed to the process being so drawn out that Jim faded as a candidate like a hardon while you're looking for a rubber.

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Tim Ryan and Pat Kirwan on Sirius NFL Radio, they host the show after Bob Pappa and Randy Cross, opened the show today with a discussion of Jim Fassel and the Redskins and they generally agreed Jim Fassel got hosed and Dan Snyder wound up making a seriously questionable decision to hire promote Jim Zorn.

But Pat threw up an interesting out for Dan Snyder: if Fassel was the guy, the Dan was comfortable with, the guy that recommended Jim Zorn and then wound up getting passed over for the guy he helped Dan find, because like with Wade Phillips in Dallas Jim Fassel may have been the coach of the present but like Jason Garrett Jim Zorn was the coach of the future, then to help with that transition Dan could have had his cake and eaten it too by asking Jim Zorn to take Jim Fassel as his offensive coordinator.

Think about that, it would have been Jim Zorn's offense, like Mike Holmgren and Andy Reid he'll be calling his own plays, but you get Jim Fassel to help bring some discipline and experience to the process.

As is stands now Jim Zorn is the head coach of the Washington Redskins, he has no experience managing a team, designing an offense or calling plays. His top choice for offensive coordinator is a guy that also has never been a coordinator and even if Jim Zorn will be calling the plays it cannot hurt to have someone on the sideline that knows a thing or two about managing a team.

But that's overcome by events now, that ship has sailed, Jim Fassel is out of the picture, Jim Fassel is justifiably concerned by how his reputation may have been hurt by Dan Snyder in this whole process and he is speaking out to set the record straight.



Jim Fassel hoisting the NFC Championship trophy: AP photo from here.