During his daily media chat session, head coach Jim Zorn was asked his opinion on Greg Blache's impassioned defense of Daniel Snyder. You might have thought -- given all the reports that swirled around Sherm Lewis taking over play-calling duties -- that this might've been a tense moment, but that wasn't how it played out at all.

Zorn didn't hesitate before agreeing with Blache and offering up his own defense of the owner -- and taking responsibility for a big chunk of the problem.

"Dan Snyder is a guy that absolutely cares about other people. He does not have that kind of [dark heart] attitude," Zorn said.

Defensive coordinator Greg Blache hasn't been talking to the media lately, not because of a boycott but for personal reasons that were approved by the league. Today, that changed.

I figured I had written everything I was going to write about John Riggins' screed from last night in my last post. But Blache wasn't satisfied with quietly mumbling his frustration with Riggins. He asked the Redskins PR staff to gather the media, and unleashed the following comments.

"Hey, guys. I just wanted to come in here today real quick. This morning when I came in I turned my computer on, and I was looking at ProFootballTalk and I saw a comment that John Riggins had made about Mr. Snyder, and it really bothered me the more I sat there at my desk. Because there's been a lot of criticism of him over the last few weeks, and this is a man I've known for six years -- since I've been here.

"And in the six years I've never seen John Riggins here. I've met him once at the Beach Blitz down in Virginia Beach; never seen him down in the building. So to hear such a vicious criticism of somebody I consider not just my employer but a good friend ... bothered me.

"As much as I hadn't been talking to the media, I felt like this was something I needed to do. Somebody needed to stand up and set this record straight, because this person ... the comment that was made was "dark heart"? That's totally, totally untrue. And the problem is the fans don't get to know Mr. Snyder like we do, and so they get an impression of things that are written and things people say."

But wait, there's more:

Big day for defensive coordinator Greg Blache's media availability, and not just for clever turns of phrase. First of all, he announced that Reed Doughty will be replacing Chris Horton in the starting lineup.

"Reed's actually played better the last couple of weeks," Blache said, "and Chris has struggled a little bit. You know, he had a play last week with bad eyes and got the interference call; he had an incident the week before ... and it's not that we're down on him. But the fact that you have a guy in Reed that's so close to him, it gives you an opportunity to get a guy that gives Chris a chance to catch his breath, refocus, come back strong. It's a long season, and at the same time it gives Reed a chance to get out on the field more and give us an opportunity to make some plays."

Redskins defensive coordinator spoke to a group of students at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, today -- yes, that's the school from Remember The Titans, and Blache remembered recruiting players from there back when he was a college coach -- as part of the Redskins' partnership with the National Guard.

The speech focused on leadership, teaching, and other positive messages; Gary Fitzgerald has done an excellent job covering it over on Redskins.com, and I recommend his article. For my part, I was mainly interested in any of Coach Blache's characteristically unusual turns of phrase, and on that score, I was a little disappointed.

Blache stayed on-message the entire time -- "Coaching is teaching," he said, "My specialty is teaching. My guys have their test on national TV every Sunday" -- and largely delivered that message without entertaining stories about hunting and what-not. Mostly. Except for the story he said he tells his players about how dealing with criticism is like a frog climbing a water tower.

I'm paraphrasing, but essentially the story dealt with a whole bunch of "little green frogs clinging to a water tower." As they all tried to climb up, people at the bottom shouted how they couldn't possibly make it up -- and sure enough, one by one they fell off. Except for one frog who finally made it up, and when the people asked how he had pulled that off, didn't give any answer.

"The only frog to make it to the top was deaf," Blache said. "He couldn't hear all of the people telling him he could not do it. Sometimes who you're around, your friends, you have to be deaf. So many people try to pull you down because they don't believe in you or they're afraid of success."

It's no "south end of a northbound skunk," but it was a nice little story, and the Blachiest element of his (very good) talk.

Even more interesting, though, was the Redskins personnel news that came out in the post-speech Q&A.