Former Seahawks quarterback Jim Zorn and running back Sherman Smith have joked/promised each other that, when one of them becomes a head coach, the other would be hired as the offensive coordinator.

But with the first half of that equation settled (for anyone who has been in a coma since Saturday, Zorn is the new Redskins coach) and the back end reportedly a done deal if Smith wants it, Smith seems to be wavering.

“I think it’s mine to turn down,” Smith told the Washington Times.  “But I need to go up there and see if the time is right.  It boils down to asking the question, ‘Do I want to be a coordinator?’  So much is overblown about the coordinator’s position.  It’s not like the [Titans’] coordinator goes up on a mountaintop and comes down and gives us a plan.  We all worked together to put the plan in, so it is not one guy doing the planning and the rest of us nodding our heads.  We all worked together.”

Um.  Is he serious?

Regardless of what a coordinator actually does, it’s a step up toward the ultimate goal of becoming a head coach.

Now, it could be that Smith’s spider sense is telling him that Zorn will be a short-timer in D.C., and that Smith would prefer to stay with the franchise for which he has worked since 1995 in lieu of being out of a job come 2009.  If that’s why he’s hesitating, he obviously can’t say that.

But, still, we’re not sure that publicly questioning his own ambitions is the best way to go, either.

Meanwhile, Seahawks running backs coach Stump Mitchell has taken the same job in Washington, replacing Earnest Byner.  If (as we presume) Mitchell, who joined the ‘Hawks with Mike Holmgren in 1999, was still under contract with Seattle, Holmgren could have blocked the move.