Jim Zorn | Former NFL QB and Coach

You're listening to the Zach Gelb Show. We continue this Zach Gelb Show coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Let's go out to the guest line right now. Welcome in former NFL quarterback and coach and that, of course, Jim Zorn, who's now with the pro player project.

We'll hear more about that coming up momentarily. Jim, appreciate the time as always. How you been? I'm well and I'm fine. I've been doing a bunch of things. I'm still in Seattle and I'm following the Hawks. Had a tough game last night, but doing really well.

Thanks. Well, we actually got a phone call about you a few weeks ago from a Seahawks fan. We were talking about Russell Wilson and what has happened to his career. And the caller is very passionate about your career and said that you were better than Russell Wilson when you were playing in Seattle. So how about that, coach?

Well, that's flattering. I think Russell did a great job while he was in Seattle. He did a lot of scrambling and that's what I was known for mobility and throwing the ball down the field, running down the field and things like that. I think that's what teams are looking for these days are quarterbacks that can get out of trouble and maybe create something. And Russell certainly did that.

So great. I'm glad there's some fans that remember the olden days. Yeah, no, he was adamant.

I think he was your biggest supporter. How about Russell Wilson now? Because ever since he has left Seattle, it's been messy for him. And now he's trying to get back on the field with the Steelers while he navigates through this injury and also the play of Justin Fields. Yeah, I think that some quarterbacks maybe adhere quickly to a new situation because of how they get presented the offense and what you know, what maybe what freedoms or actual maybe more technique, more fundamentals come into play.

So some respond to that and some it takes longer to do that. The disappointment obviously is that Russell's Russell got injured, hasn't been able hasn't been able to see the game. And I think when you have a hot QB and Justin's playing well, you got to you got to maintain that until things go awry.

And and he doesn't he shouldn't be playing kind of looking and fearing that Russell is going to be coming in. I think it's hard for coaches to think because nobody knows what really is going on, except that the players and that and that the coaches who kind of say, you know, he keeps making this mistake or he's playing great, we got to keep him in there. That little that little war room, they know what's going on.

And I think they'll handle it well. I like Mike Tomlin and I think he's got a lot of wisdom for his football team. And you know, they're they're they're strong right now and they're running the ball well.

I know you said you got a chance, Jim Zorn, to watch the game last night. The forty niners kind of remind everybody how good of a team they could be even after that slow start. And for Gino Smith, it's like a interesting roller coaster ride. You know that there's better quarterbacks than him, but there's also a lot of quarterbacks that you wouldn't want to have on your team compared to Gino Smith. And he made a costly interception late. Just how about that one last night? Yeah, the hard part is think about the couple of plays before that when he threw the touchdown pass to to D.K.

Metcalf. You know, so here is this play. And I think the announcers even said on television it was inconsequential over there that somebody didn't get set. So the play gets called back. And then a few plays later, the game's over and they lose. And so you're you're probably right. And you're only as good as your your very last play. Right.

The very last play you did. And, you know, unfortunately, it turned into an interception. I think you got you know, he's the Seahawks have to play well as a as a group. They're learning. It's a whole new regime. They're learning new concepts. They're learning new things about how the offense is run, how the defense is run in special teams. All they can do is grow. And the hard part is for fans to go through the growing pains with a group, you know, with the group that's out there right now trying to learn and trying to bring a championship to Seattle again.

Well, fans that have been through a lot of pain have been commanders fans. And now through the first five games of the Jadon's Daniel era, the sky feels like it's the limit. I know they have a tough one this weekend up against Baltimore. And that's a quarterback matchup made for you with Lamar Jackson going up against Jaden Daniels. But how about the early impressions on the young Heisman Trophy quarterback out of LCO? He's he's just he's it's exciting to watch a young guy play just with the confidence that he's playing with no fear, knowing how to drop balls and he's got some high skill level throws that he's making and he's bought into their system, what they're trying to do and then what in turn the coaching staff has really said, we've got to not exploit but we've got to really use the talent we have here. I fear that when you use a QB and you run him down the field too much it you know, there's risk involved with him sitting on the bench for a while with with a little injury here there.

But you certainly want to take advantage of all the athleticism that this young man has and he's doing a great job with it. And you kind of look at that division, you know, I don't expect much out of the Giants. The Cowboys, I don't think are all that great of a team and the Eagles. It seems like they have a little bit of a chemistry problem with though they have the talent. It could change quickly in this league. We saw it last year with the Texans and CJ Stroud. It's not crazy to say the commanders could go in this division this year.

They could. And, you know, I I really believe that NSC North is such a it's a difficult division to win. You're always playing, you know, I'm talking about, you know, here Baltimore, they're going to be ready for for what's going on with the Redskins as well, even though they're not purely divisional opponents.

Right. They still have the they both have wonderful teams. They both have the capacity of, you know, I don't know who's going to win that game and I'm looking, you know, I'm looking forward to watching it as well. But in Washington, Washington's always got, you know, when Washington plays the Cowboys, you know, it's one of those games where you don't really know about the records. You don't really care about the records because there's such battle going on. Nobody's smiling after those those games.

Even if you win it, you're just exhausted because the battle is so intense. So I think that Washington in their role, they have to stay focused because when you're five and all guys like yourself, radio, radio programs, TV programs, they want to hone in on what's really going on there. And certainly the quarterbacks a part of that.

But they got to stay focused and not not get distracted with the direction they're going in. I know that you got a chance to spend one year in Baltimore and quarterback coaching one Joe Flacco, who is still playing. And we'll see if Anthony Richardson is going to be able to give it a go this week. But it's kind of wild to what's happening with Joe Flacco, this renaissance going back to last year with Cleveland.

I thought it was a massive mistake by the Browns to let him go and not keep him in that quarterback room with the inconsistency from Deshaun Watson. But whenever this guy gets on the field coach, he still finds a way to find a little fountain of youth. He is so he is so steady and he's you know, he's he's he's one of the better QBs in the National Football League. But he doesn't have to he doesn't get out there and and try to I don't know if anybody's trying to promote that for him. So I would say if he was asked the question, he would just say, yeah, I'm just doing what I'm asked to do.

I'm doing what I'm I'm doing what I know how to do. And he he plays steady. And I think his teammates believe in him when he gets on the field, they believe they're going to move the ball. And he doesn't get he doesn't get high and low with all the emotional things that go on during a game. And so he stays. He stays real steady in there. And I think a lot of him. And I'm not surprised that he's having the success he's having. I guess we would say later in his career, he sees a quality. He's a quality QB. No question about it. Jim Zorn here with us for a few more moments.

We will talk about pro player project in just a second. So let me get back to Joe's previous stop before winding up in Indianapolis with Cleveland. I know they paid Deshaun Watson a lot of money. He struggled to stay on the field. But this year, that entire team, it seems like it's getting impacted with the cloud of Deshaun Watson hanging over the organization because they were thriving last year. He's been back.

And now they've been one of the worst teams in the league. Do you see anything as a former coach, as a former quarterback that makes you think, OK, maybe really with his back up against the wall and the final chance in Cleveland, regardless of the contract, having still two more years on it after this year, that he could find a way to get the job done? Yeah, I you know, when you have a you have some quarterbacks are really good athletes and they run the they run the offense, but they cannot.

And he can create with his feet. But when you're a quarterback in the National Football League, defensive coordinators are pretty special in a line aligning, studying you as an offensive group. And they want to take away the run first. They want to take away your strengths and they want to put the pressure on maybe the a person that is not handling the pressure of, you know, that that mantle well. And I think that's, you know, in my impression, and I'm not there, I think that's what what happens in this in this situation without a QB that can.

And I don't know what their QB rooms like or what what they allow Deshaun to do or not to do. But when you're on the line of scrimmage and you see certain things, the better quarterbacks can say that, you know, there's where my problem is. I've got to do something about that. Either either go this way or protect myself over here. You've got to do something. And if you can't do it, if you can't speak it and make the changes because you don't understand it, then you really struggle. Then all you can do is run plays. So, you know, you and I, we're not in that room, I guess none of us are. And only those people that know are maybe that's, you know, I would just speculate that you can only use what you you know what they can perform on the football field.

Would you like to have it more? And then maybe that's what Joe did, because, Joe, I know what Joe can do. And he didn't get rattled. He just said, oh, well, I've got this. I'm going this way.

I've got that. I'm going to protect myself over here so I can get the ball off. And that's what that quarterback is doing.

And then when he does it, everybody else around him believes it. And it makes the offense really roll down the field. Let me take you back to the start of your coaching career because we're a national show, but one of our great affiliates is K.T.I.K. in Boise. And I know that you started your coaching career on the offensive staff in the late 80s, early 90s in Boise with Boise State.

So reflect a little bit about those days. Yeah, I went in and I shared an office with a running back coach and I was just, you know, here's the playbook. Let's go.

Let's go do this. And my first coaching, you know, my first coaching responsibility was coaching the quarterbacks. Then I had coaching the quarterbacks and the kickers and I had coaching quarterbacks, kickers and the wide receivers.

So I had a lot. But the thing that at the college level that is way different than the NFL level is the recruiting is trying to recruit while you're coaching. And that was a big learning curve for me. The other thing is, you know, these young men, they're student athletes. They have to go not only just to play football, but they're going to school as well.

So there's there's a lot of things that are wrapped up into college sports that in the NFL you don't have. I learned a lot from my office mate and I learned a lot from Skip Hall, who's the head coach at that time. I was there for three years. And then we had, you know, in in football, you either you're you're staying for a while because that's your level or you're moving on and moving up because you've had success.

And so I moved around. But Boise State, we were one double A at that time as well. And I would say whatever level coaches can start at, they should start there. You'll note you'll note to to either what you think might be an improvement. But every coaching staff has that battle in mind and that plan of action. And it's up to us as coaches to learn and to get better and to you really have to understand what what you're doing in your room. And you have to be, I think, upfront and honest to these players. That's what they want. And they want you to bring them.

They want you to bring them further down the line. And that's what I tried to do when I was at Boise. And it was a good start. I really enjoyed it.

I don't think my wife thought, you know, when football was over playing, I don't know if she took a breath, but I don't think she realized that, you know, in our whole marriage, we were going to be a football family. Yeah. Jim Zorn, before we let you run, tell me about what you do with pro player project. Well, this is pro player prayer project. And I'm in last night, which was 1010.

It was National Mental Health Day. What we did, we got a group and we had 32 tables, very tiny tables. But we sat around four or five people at each one of these tables and we prayed for every NFL player by name. So all 1696 players were prayed for last night in one session. And I got to sit at the Seahawk table and I got to, you know, I knew more than, you know, just being just just sitting down saying, yeah, let me pray for these guys.

Who are they? So I got to pray for, you know, the head coach, Mike McDonald, you know, I know Leslie Frazier, well, his assistant head coach. And that, you know, so the staff, John Schneider, Lord, please bring the ring to John the right players, you know, but more than that, we're praying for each player and in specific ways, in general ways and trying to have an impact. And I think the goal is to you know, you always see players on the field and when they score a touchdown, they're praising Lord when there's when there is an injured player, guys are taking knees, praying for them. And I think that's really what this project is bringing. You know, in in sport, it's bringing the the vision of being able to pray for each other and taking things to God so that, you know, we can I just feel had this closer relationship with him. And it was it was an exciting experience last night. And once again, for more information, visit pro player prayer project dot com.

He's the former NFL head coach and also quarterback gyms or Jim. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you very much. See you later, Zach.