Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley is out for the season on injured reserve. And now that he’s lost his season, he also seems to have lost any inhibitions about explaining what a mess the Redskins’ offense is.
Appearing today on Sirius NFL Radio, Cooley explained the Rube Goldberg machine that is the Redskins’ offense. And he said that as far as he knows, play-caller Sherman Lewis doesn’t even talk to quarterback Jason Campbell.
“So then what happens is Sherman Lewis, who is our offensive consultant, will install the regular game plan and then we go practice that,” Cooley said. “And then on Thursday, Jim Zorn will install the third down and then he’ll also install the run game. And apparently, because I haven’t really been there, is that Sherman Lewis never talks to Jason Campbell throughout the week.”
According to Cooley, head coach Jim Zorn is still the guy who works with Campbell during the week, even though Zorn is out of the loop and doesn’t know what Lewis and offensive coordinator Sherman Smith are telling Campbell on game day.
“Sherman Lewis sits in the box; he calls plays,” Cooley said. “He’s the play caller. And he calls them down to our offensive coordinator, another person in the mix, Sherman Smith. And he looks at plays and basically calls them - they’re wristband numbers - so he’ll say, ‘Wristband 5,’ and that’s what’s relayed to Jason Campbell, who then looks at his wristband and calls that play.
“The funny thing is, is that when we want to call a run play, Sherman Lewis will call and say, ‘give me a run’ and then Sherman Smith has to pick a run and give that to Jason. So it’s, uh, it’s a carousel of calls.”
“Carousel” is a good word to use. The Redskins’ play calling is a circus.