So sayeth Emilio Garcia-Ruiz at Redskins Insider:
Zorn, formerly the Seahawks' quarterbacks coach, worked with Mitchell in Seattle and Mitchell has experience in the West Coast offense Zorn plans to implement. With the hiring of Mitchell, the status of Earnest Byner is unclear.
I should note, and newcomer tallbear13 gave me the idea in his diary, that Zorn has already demonstrated an amount of control over the hiring position that certainly doesn't gel with my initial reaction to the hire, that being this was merely a Dan Snyder puppet coach. This will be especially true if the team lands Sherman Smith (for better or worse, more on him here) because, though puppet coaches may get to pick some of their positional coaches, they certainly don't get to pick their offensive coordinators. I would've predicted that the OC came directly from Snyder, perhaps someone who was on the short list when Zorn got the job. That doesn't appear to be the case and thus it looks increasingly like I was wrong. Shocking, I know.
It is an encouraging thought that our newest Head Coach is getting latitude to operate, as I think every HC needs to succeed. And anything that (at least) appears to limit Snyder's role is mostly a good thing, (only) in my opinion. But maybe he's just being given enough rope with which to hang himself (and there is reason for skepticism over Zorn's future)? That all depends on the results.
PS: Per the Bog we now have a "stats nerd" on the staff!