The long-awaited return of now Redskins head coach Jim Zorn is nearly upon us as Washington rolls into town this Sunday.

Earlier this season I made the prediction a day would come when Seahawks fans would wish it was Zorn’s crew-cut mien peering over a clipboard on the sidelines. With the ‘Skins at 6-4, playing in the toughest division in football, the NFC East, and contending for a playoff spot, that day probably came about five weeks ago.

Particularly since coach-in-waiting Jim Mora Mk. II is running the Hawks secondary, which has been playing more like a fourthdary.

The NFC West is sufficiently crappy to justify playing Matt Hasselbeck in today's game against division-leading Arizona. But now that the Cardinals have toppled the Hawks on their home field, 26-20, the best the Seahawks can finish with in the extremely unlikely event they win out is 8-8 -- and not even that will get them into the playoffs. So, to me, there's a clear decision to be made here: shut Hasselbeck down for the year. He's got a beat-up back, and beat-up backs don't get any better by absorbing crushing hits from 300-lb. beasts every few minutes.

The Hawks need to see what they've got in backup QB Seneca Wallace (I'm not convinced that his best use isn't as a third string QB/slot receiver combo, ala vintage Kordell Stewart), and it might also be worthwhile to let rookie Justin Forsett, primarily a kick returner, get a signficant amount of backfield playing time as well. He had a fantastic college career in a big-time conference, and size alone shouldn't impede him from getting the shot to replicate that success in the pros. But again, Hasselbeck needn't have to make the heroic hobble onto the field anymore this year, because this year isn't about this year anymore.

Speaking of this year-next year dilemmas: Does it make sense to promote your secondary coach to head coach next year when your secondary has consistently underachived and gotten torched this year? Just asking.

Cumulative score of the Huskies, Cougars, and Seahawk losses this weekend: 140-7. Without doing a lick of research, I can tell you with absolute certainty that this represents the most lopsidedly crappy weekend in the history of Washington state football. And to make matters worse, the professional basketball team formerly known as the Seattle Supersonics notched its first win Sunday night. The only good news: the Beater got some love in an Everett Herald article -- on just what an unbelievably lousy season this has been for Seattle sports fans.

Damn it feels good to be second in the standings for the NFC West. After enduring the unendurable, watching third string quarterback Charlie Frye under center, and the entire cast of “Cats” try out at Hawks receiver during practice, being 2-5 seems somewhat of a blessing after yesterday’s victory over the Forty-Seveners.

More’s the pity with that Week 2 overtime loss to San-Fran which Seattle gave away. At 4-3, the Arizona Cardinals still don’t come across as the real deal.

Call me Pollyanna but I can’t help but play the Glad Game because Sunday is six whole days away. And that’s plenty of time to dream about Leonard Weaver barreling through the Eagles defense and Patrick Kerney and Julian Peterson laying the wood to Donovan McNabb.

Not Playing the Glad Game: Hall of Famer Mike Singletary was probably wishing he was out on the field playing linebacker instead of dealing with punks pouting on the bench. We don’t know how long the Samurai Mike will be roaming the sidelines but you got to love an interim coach who benches his starting quarterback (J.T. O’Sullivan) for coughing up the ball too much. And then tells the team’s top draft pick (Vernon Davis) to hit the showers with ten minutes left in the game.

The Seahawks' all-time leading rusher is headed to D.C., where he'll play for Seahawk legend Jim Zorn.

I'm kind of betting Hasselback'll tough it out, given that it's his and Holmgren's former squad, but if he doesn't, the Seahawks won't even have Seneca Wallace to turn to -- they'll have the hand the ball to Charlie Fucking Frye. So, okay, worst case scenario: the Hawks are 1-4 after Sunday, a virtually insurmountable hole to dig out of, even in the crappiest division in professional football history. Would Holmgren really want to go out like that? Or will he come back for another year, when his team will presumably be healthier? This might be the one reason to root for the Seahawks to lose this year, because if Holmgren doesn't relinquish the headset, Jim Mora Jr. (that's his dad in the vid) ends up taking a job on Montlake Boulevard, and Steve Kelley's dream actually comes true.

When sports columnists afford themselves the benefit of extreme hindsight, their jobs get a whole lot easier. That said, Steve Kelley's column in today's Times is poignant enough to bring a Seattle football fan to tears. Here's a liberal excerpt: "Jim Mora, the assistant head coach of the Seahawks and a former Husky, could have been, in hindsight should have been, named as Tyrone Willingham's replacement at Washington. He would have reawakened the Tyee Club. He would have opened up the program, invited the entire state to practices, revved up recruiting and outworked every coach in the Pac-10. Mora is a great communicator. He could have been the Northwest's Pete Carroll. The rebuilding plan already could have begun. There would be energy, instead of ennui, on Montlake. Hiring Mora would have been the right call. He still bleeds purple and, quietly, he probably relished the idea of returning to his alma mater. He would have felt it almost was his duty as a Husky to come back and repair the mess. But Washington decided to give Willingham a fourth year, and Mora, who is in charge of the Seahawks' suddenly shaky secondary, was named to succeed Holmgren after this swan-song season."

"In this lost season, when the Huskies and Seahawks are a combined 1-8, we are left to think about what might have been. While the Hawks were losing by 38 points last Sunday to the Giants, Zorn, just a short drive down the New Jersey Turnpike, was coaching the Washington Redskins to their fourth win in a row in Philadelphia. Last year Zorn was the Seahawks' quarterbacks coach. He was Matt Hasselbeck's muse, a bundle of kinetic energy and sound coaching principles. After seven seasons as a Seahawks assistant, he was ready to become a head coach. And it could have happened here. Instead, Zorn, a Washington outsider, has become the ultimate Beltway insider. He has won the hearts and minds of fans there, not an easy task. Washington is 4-1. It has won consecutive games at Dallas and Philadelphia and, with games against St. Louis, Cleveland and Detroit looming, it should be 7-1 by Halloween. This is not to say that Mora won't succeed with the Seahawks. But imagine the excitement this city would be feeling with one Jim at the University of Washington and the other Jim preparing to replace Holmgren."

If there are any glass-half-full football fans out there who shrugged off the Huskies' and Seahawks' twin 30-point drubbings with the obligatory "could be worse," Seth Kolloen has news for you: This is actually the worst it's ever been.

The Seahawks finally have signed former first round pick Koren Robinson, bringing the troubled receiver back to Seattle. Looks like a trade is also going through with Denver to acquire wideout Keary Colbert.

This puts an end to the rumors that the Hawks were looking to sign Motown crooner Smokey Robinson and Comedy Central funnyman Stephen Colbert

The stop-gap moves to flesh out the receiver corp should be seen as just that. But it's good that GM Tim Ruskell has the leeway to something, anything to get a couple healthy targets for QB Matt Hasselback.