Teams
- Seattle Seahawks (1976-1984)
- Green Bay Packers (1985)
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1987)
Accolades
- Second-Team All-Pro (1978)
“[Jim] was very, very disciplined… he was also the master of the impromptu play.”
-Steve Largent, Hall of Fame Wide Receiver, Seattle Seahawks (source)
Being the starting quarterback of an expansion franchise is no enviable task. But to also be a rookie? After being cut by the Dallas Cowboys in 1975, without ever playing a regular season down, southpaw Jim Zorn would find himself the starter of the first-year Seattle Seahawks just one year later. Hosting the St. Louis Cardinals in Week 1, he would perform quite well, totaling 318 yards of offense and scoring three touchdowns. But an early deficit, compounded by two picks, would eventually result in a 30-24 defeat. The rest of the season would not go much better for the expansion Seahawks, finishing 2-12 with one of those wins against the 0-14 first-year Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Seattle’s rookie QB would put up some fairly ugly numbers in his rookie effort: a league-most 27 INTs, a 47.4% completion percentage, and a 49.5 passer rating. But the growing pains of an expansion team from yesteryear are much different than the open access to the free agency of today. A difficult first year was to be expected, but so was improvement in Year 2. And improve Zorn did in 1977, despite only starting ten games due to injury. He would lead Seattle to four of their five wins on the year, while totaling 17 touchdowns and leading the NFL with 16.2 yards per completion. But at 5-9, while the Seahawks may have been improving, they were still far from where they wanted to be.
The NFL expanded its regular season from 14 to 16 games in 1978. The young Seahawks were prepared for the marathon. Although opening the year with an 0-2 start, they would win four of their last five, finishing 9-7 and just missing the postseason by one game. A big reason for their perpetual improvement was their 25-year old quarterback who would make drastic strides. In one season, his completion percentage shot up from 41.4% to 56.0%. His passer rating soared from 54.3 to 72.1. His interception rate fell from 7.6% to 4.5%. And he would exceed 3,000 passing yards for the first time with 3,283 of them. But he had a partner in crime on offense, a fellow third-year wideout named Steve Largent whose 1,168 receiving yards and eight TDs would earn him his first of seven career Pro Bowl nods.
On the cusp of finally making the playoffs, Seattle would fall achingly short in ’79. Handicapped by a 1-4 start, they would close out at 5-1 to again finish 9-7, a game behind division rivals Denver for the final Wild Card spot. It would be all the more frustrating as their seemingly inept expansion counterparts from ’76, Tampa Bay, would go 10-6 and make their first postseason. The near-miss was no fault of Zorn’s. Seattle would have the NFL’s fourth-highest scoring offense thanks to their QB’s career year. He would accumulate 3,940 total yards and 22 TDs, while his 3,661 passing yards would end up fourth-best among all signal callers. But Seattle’s defense would finish 24th out of 28 in points allowed, costing the team a possible playoff berth.
With high hopes coming into 1980, a 4-3 start would have a devastating conclusion as the Seahawks would drop their final nine games, the year terminating with a crushing 4-12 final record. Their quarterback’s overall numbers were pretty good (3,500+ total yards and a 56.6% completion percentage), but the offense would struggle to score, falling to 21st in the league in total points while remaining in the bottom five in scoring defense. The 1981 season saw a slight rebound as Seattle finished 6-10, but only after a back-breaking 1-6 start. The season already lost, Zorn would suffer a season-ending ankle injury during a Thanksgiving weekend game against the also-struggling defending NFL champion Oakland Raiders. Zorn’s unheralded back-up would play well in three essentially meaningless games. Few expected it to actually predict a changing of the guard in the Emerald City.
Jim Zorn’s back-up of the previous few seasons, Dave Krieg, would open the season for the Seahawks in 1982. After an 0-2 start, the NFL players went on strike. When play resumed in mid-November, Seattle’s first-ever head coach, Jack Patera, was no longer with the team. In came Mike McCormack, who had coached the Baltimore Colts the previous year to a miserable 2-14 record. McCormack went back to Zorn, and while the Seahawks rallied around him, it was a struggle for the only primary signal caller the team had ever really known. They would finish 4-5, again missing the playoffs by just one game, as Zorn’s passer rating plummeted to 61.9.
The successful former Head Coach of the L.A. Rams and Buffalo Bills, Chuck Knox, took over the team in ’83. Knox entrusted the team to Zorn, who got Seattle off to a promising 3-2 start. But in Weeks 7 and 8, Zorn would completely fall apart, going 5-for-24 over six quarters for a measly 15 passing yards. Knox would replace Zorn with his back-up, saying “It’s David Krieg’s job until he loses it.” Krieg didn’t lose it. The Seahawks would win five of their last eight, including their final two, and this time 9-7 was enough to make the playoffs. Zorn could only watch as his understudy would beat hyped rookies John Elway and Dan Marino in succession (including a perfect 158.3 passer rating in the Wild Card round). Zorn would get his first taste of the postseason in the AFC Championship Game as Krieg struggled against the L.A. Raiders defense. While Zorn’s off-the-bench effort was admirable (134 passing yards, two TDs, two picks), it wasn’t enough to save Seattle…or his career.
Dave Krieg would retain his job and start all 16 games for the Seahawks in ’84, guiding them back to the playoffs at 12-4 while steering the NFL’s fifth-highest scoring offense. But Krieg also had something that Zorn never did: a good defense; one that would also finish fifth in the NFL in fewest points allowed. Jim Zorn spent the year as back-up, never starting and only throwing 17 passes. His time now up in the Pacific Northwest, Zorn would start five games for Green Bay in ’85, winning two. He would head even further north, to Winnipeg, to play for the CFL’s Blue Bombers in ’86. He would return to the U.S. in the midst of the 1987 NFL players’ strike, starting one game (a win) for Tampa Bay, before retiring after the season.
Jim Zorn was always the right guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had to learn the NFL game as a rookie for an expansion team. He had some success in 2008 as the unanticipated Head Coach of the Washington Redskins, at 8-8, before a 4-12 sophomore effort quickly cost him his job. Then in 2020 he would get another head coaching gig, this time for the Seattle Dragons of the XFL. Before even getting his feet wet, the league suspended operations after five games due to the Coronavirus. Getting back to the Seahawks though, Jim Zorn was a big reason the young team progressed so quickly. Perhaps had he been in another situation, a young dual-threat quarterback behind an established offensive line, he might find himself among the 100 greatest to ever play the position. Still, Zorn’s contributions to pro football in the Emerald City are forever secure, not only in being the signal caller who helped turn the Seahawks from a collection of spare parts into a competitor, but also in the bust of Steve Largent that resides in Canton.
Chart
| Season | W-L% | Tot Y/G | Tot TD/G | Tot TO/G | Y/C/Y/A | Cmp % | TD% | Int% |
| Reg Season | -0.068 | -0.016 | -0.104 | 0.050 | -0.009 | -0.025 | -0.180 | 0.031 |
| Playoffs | -0.400 | -0.401 | 0.387 | -0.032 | -0.270 | -0.032 | 0.637 | -0.527 |
Longevity Bonus = 0.5 Title Bonus = 0.0
Index Score = -1.526 (average QB = 0.0)
Deviation Rank (out of 152)
| Season | W-L% | Tot Y/G | Tot TD/G | Tot TO/G | Y/C/Y/A | Cmp % | TD% | Int% |
| Reg Season | 133rd | 79th | 115th | 101st | 108th | 120th | 141st | 86th |
| Playoffs | T-129th | 140th | 14th | 100th | 150th | 98th | 11th | 134th |
What made him good?
In essentially only one part-time playoff appearance he did manage to throw two touchdown passes on only 27passes, which helps him break into the Top 20 in both TD rate and total touchdowns per game for the postseason. And all his accomplishments were with a team starting from scratch, with draft picks and team castaways, as opposed to high-priced free agents. He’s one of the few left-handed quarterbacks ever to play on a consistent basis in the NFL (don’t believe me? Check the Wikipedia page.) An under-appreciated dual-threat player, he ran for 1,504 yards in his career with an average of 4.7 yards per carry.
Why isn’t he on the Top 100 list?
For the regular season, Jim Zorn only cracks the Top 100 in two categories, total yards per game (79th) and interception rate (86th). Having to spend virtually his entire career with an expansion team, right from the get-go, the win-loss percentage is understandably impacted in a negative fashion (133rd). He exceeded 17 TD passes just once in his career, hurting his touchdown percentage (141st).
The Quarterback Project 