In an hour, a day, three days, this could be wrong, but something doesn’t feel quite right about the Redskins coaching search. If Jim Fassel now is the No.1 candidate, he could have been hired immediately after Steve Spagnuolo decided to withdraw his name from the process.

  What I’m wondering is if there is a candidate who is unknown to everyone who now is being interviewed by or negotiating with Dan Snyder. Three things are in the back of my mind.

  1. Snyder likes to make an impact when he hires a coach. It’s hard to see Jim Fassel or Steve Mariucci having much of an impact on the news cycle. Ron Meeks, since he is a minority candidate, would have a bigger impact.

  2. When I asked Snyder, during the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection announcement, if the three names widely reported to be on his list, Fassel, Mariucci and Meeks, were actually on his list, he said, “You’d be close.“

  For a week, I took that to mean Fassel and Meeks were on the list, but that Mariucci might have dropped off. Now I’m wondering if, “You’d be close.“ will turn out to mean there was another name that only Snyder and his confidantes knew. Snyder did say, before the Spagnolo was officially added to the list, that there were three candidates on his list. He never said who they are.

  3. Snyder spoke very highly of Meeks in that same interview. Was Snyder doing that to create a diversion? I don’t think so. I think Meeks is a viable candidate. However, he also could have been hired immediately after Spagnuolo withdrew his name. (It hardly seems fair that Spagnuolo withdrew his name just as I had learned to spell it.)

  The odds favor Fassel to get the job. But something tells me that when all this is said and done, the new Redskins coach will catch many by surprise. We’ll know soon. Even with both coordinators in place, eventually, the Redskins have to hire a head coach.