He didn’t provide any hints that the offense was giving him trouble in the first two games, completing passes long and short; with zip and with touch. That changed Saturday. For the first time, Jason Campbell looked like a quarterback learning a new offense.
But that’s a good thing. Campbell needs to learn what coach Jim Zorn wants and sometimes the best way for that to happen is to have things go wrong. Or not go as well as they’d gone the first two weeks.
In Saturday’s 13-10 preseason win over the New York Jets, the Redskins’ first offense managed 62 yards on 16 snaps. Campbell completed four of 10 passes for 28 yards.
“The rhythm was off for him,” Zorn said.
That was true on the second series when the Redskins reached the red zone, an area where they struggled last year. On first down Campbell missed an open receiver down the sideline — “An easy touchdown,” Zorn said. Campbell hesitated and then threw deep over the middle to tight end Chris Cooley for an incompletion.
“He wasn’t sure of the very first thing he wanted to do,” Zorn said, “and I’ve got to get him to help himself with his gut feel because he had the right decision at first and he wanted it to be better but he didn’t need it to be.”
The hesitation partly stemmed from not having much work on these situations in practice or, thus far, in games.
“It’s that whole idea of, in the red zone things happen faster and the decision is immediate,” Zorn said.
It’ll help when a player such as rookie receiver Malcolm Kelly is healthy and can use his size in this area — Kelly might practice this week.
But the more Campbell goes through a game with Zorn, the more he’ll know what he wants.
“Fortunately, Jason gave me another chance to call another play,” Zorn said. “He was very stingy with the ball in the red zone. That’s the mark of a guy in control of the situation. I just don’t want him to hesitate.”
