Last season, our OC Dan Henning had many reasons/excuses for our team's O to suck. He had to deal with our QB going down, and a first time player taking over, a rag-tag group of WR's, no production from TE, best player being injured, a multitude of OL injuries, and a brutal schedule. Poor old Dan. He somehow managed to get us to # 17, in the NFL, at 337 yds per game. Not too bad but, let's look at scoring. Amazingly, high powered O's, with a ton of talent, did little better than us. Zona had 375 points for the season. Atlanta had 363, and Dallas had 361. Our talent-starved O had 360 points. How the hell did this happen? All analysts and coaches hold third down conversions in very high esteem, and rightfully so. Just look at the "Big Boys" on O. SD- 44%, NE- 44%, Minne- 45%, NO- 45%, and Indy- 49%. How can we come close? We did more than that. We were at 49%, same as Peyton, and did it on 245 tries, as opposed to 193 for Indy. Many Dolphans complain about the play calling, and Henning. I just wished to confuse them with a few facts. Here's another. The guys putting together this O, and play calling (Henning, Sparano, and Tuna) have over 100 years of coaching experience, and I'm not including Lee, who may be the best QB coach in the game. I can't wait to see what these guys come up with now that we have much more talent. Anyone with me on this?
That's nice and all, but we looked bad vs Atlanta and if we don't score 50+ vs Dallas this week Henning must be strung up by his ankles and hung in effigy.
While Mularky was in town we could have strung up two with one rope. Funny story. I met an older Phan at half-time, who had a group listening about 72. He was saying that many fans did not think we were even going to the Super Bowl because we would not pass the ball. LOL
Dan Henning is a sly old fox with more NFL coaching experience than most OC's ever thought of, IMHO he has performed very well considering the level of talent and injuries he's had to work with. I don't get the rants on Henning, I think he's one of the best and am glad we have him.
I call Henning "The Mad Scientist." What he's done the last two years, with our talent level, has been a lot of smoke and mirrors, and a whole lot of knowledge and experience, to his credit.
Preseason playbook. It's probably the same playbook from last year. No deep routes. I also see the sarcasm.
I think our third down numbers were skewed by how well we did on third and short. We were horrid at 3rd and long. That's where I hope Henne's development and Marshall will make a big difference. IMO that third down stat gets thrown around improperly. Yes, third down is a very important stat, but it must be used in conjunction with big plays. People forget (or don't realize) that our defense was tied for 4th in the league at stopping 3rd downs. Yet nobody says that we were fine on D b/c of that. The truth is that we weren't fine on either side of the ball b/c we lacked play makers. On offense, you want to be able to make big plays and on defense you want to be able to stop them. We actually had fewer play makers on offense so that's why the Marshall addition was key. I see Brown as the one other true play maker on offense. IMO a play making FS should have been the draft priority on defense, but they went more for quantity. We did add a play maker in Dansby and you have to hope that Wake will continue to be the same kind of play maker he was last year with increased snaps. We also had Starks and Bell who I think are good defensive play makers.
Aaaaarg, there's always on in the crowd. LOL This is about Henning, and how he did with what he had to work with. Who was calling the plays which made it 3rd and short. Also, we were one of the best in the NFL in the red zone. I do understand, and agree with, most of what you are saying. This thread was to show that Henning is no where near as bad as some would make him out to be, quite the opposite.
I love what he's doing with the hybrid....just dont think anyone else but ronnie can run the cat and get positive consistent results, cause it aint gonna happen. The only major problem I had with him for the past few years is when we were pounding Buffalo with the run, and had ricky throw that pass..For a professional to do that in that situation considering all the variable's in your favor, was mindboggling.
Doing well on 3rd and short doesn't skew the statistic. The offense did need a playmaker, however that doesn't take away from them doing well on third downs or from Dan Henning's play calling. An offense still has to make it to "third and short".
49% is nice but the other 51% he would crap all over himself and make the biggest headscratching calls i've ever seen in football..the ricky intercepted pass(partly ricky's fault as he never should've thrown it),the six wildcat sweeps to the left in the no game that wasn't working so hey lets run that play three times to the right(not exact numbers but we kept running it over and over with no success)..all the screen passes for 3rd and 6-12. most of all though it has been poor execution on the o from the players themselfs..100 yrs of coaching means didly squat when your tailback whiffs on blocks or your o-line gets called 3 times in a row.
Over/ under on how many games into the season until one of Henning's "I'm too smart for my own good" play calls loses us a game. I'll put it at 5. I'll take the under.
Don't forget 2nd and goal from the 1 vs Baltimore in the playoffs two years ago and Miami comes away with only a field goal. Would have been 7-0 and put Baltimore on their heels. Instead Baltimore gets a goal line stand that fires up the defense for the rest of the game. That right there summarizes Dan Henning's play calling. For a long stretch he will call quality plays, and then in the most CRUCIAL time of a game he will call something completely bogus.
Henning did a great job last year. I just pray he opens up the playbook this year. With the addition of B Marsh we better have a more explosive offense. If we continue to dink and dunk i'll be very disapointed. We're going to need to score alot to offset the growing pains this defense might have. I hope we throw 99% of our passes Marsh's way. We have the pieces, he better use them.
Henning has and continues to do very nice work generally. There are, however, times when he goes haywire with off the wall calls. Like when the offense would be on a roll and he throw the WC in there a we'd lose the continuity we'd built up. Sometimes, as others have said, he simply tinkers too much with things. That said, I know that when he was in Carolina and in Washington earlier, he had very little 'flexibility' as an OC. Both Gibbs and Foxy wanted the offense to be called a certain way...now, it worked for them...but I don't think that Sparano has the background that either of those guys do. What I really don't know, is how restrictive is Sparano/Parcells on the PC responsibilities ?? Anyone care to take a guess ???
Yeah, that one was tuff to take. It was a good call, which Ricky said he completes 9 out of 10 times but, we were running over them.
I'm just guessing that he pretty much has control of the O. How would you like to be a fly on the wall on game planning between this group? "This will work." "Well, it did not back in 82." "Yeah but, it did in 99 and again in 09." "Teams were different, and most forgot about it." You get my drift. LOL
I'm betting that Henning plays to his talent in the passing game. Hell, he likely recalls the first pass ever thrown, and has been adjusting ever since.
Well, he's doing something right because he's been successful wherever he's been (as a coordinator). His offenses generally do very well. I don't think it would ever get to him telling Tony, "Hey, it worked in '82, so I want to do it again", but there is some theme that it keeps coming back and working 'again'....at any rate, my guess is that Sparano has a tight reign because that's the way he wants it....not because it did or did not work....Conversely, some of these off the wall calls, IMHO, just might be coming from Sparano...not Henning...
Henning is no different then any other successful OC, his offense is good IF you have the right people to run it. The team wins ballgames, OC looks like a success, a team goes 7-9 ? is that called success ? IMO , Henning ? Meh,
I'm suspending judgement until Buffalo. I'll let him have it for flat out stupid playcalling in the 2 min. periods. Don't think I don't appreciate Henning. I understand that he is tailoring this offense to it's strengths.
Just playing and having some fun. Seriously, Henning has done one hell of a job with little to work with, and I am VERY glad he is our OC, regardless of what some may think.
No, it wasn't. Completely unnecessary. If you play out the risk / reward scenarios of throwing the ball, vs. running it in against a patchwork front 7, the answer should have been clear. Pound it in. Horrible play call that lost us that game, IMHO. Completely woke up a slumbering Bills crowd which energized the team.
He hasn't had "little to work with". A veteran QB in 2008. More than capable WR's (insert Ginn joke here) and TE's both years, with two of the top RB's in the game and one of the best offensive lines. That "little to work with" argument holds no ground.
WOW! You are absolutely right. I cannot believe we lost a game with all that talent. It was MUCH better than Indy, SD, NE, and the rest of the playoffs teams. What the hell was I thinking? I have been known as a sarcastic SOB on occasion. This is one. LOL!
It does when people are claiming our offense was fine last year. The offense was as fine as our defense was when it was the 4th best in the league at stopping 3rd down conversions. Now, I don't blame Henning for that. I thought he did well enough with what he had. You haven't seen me complaining about Henning or the play calling. There are always differences in what I may have done on this play or that but overall I don't see his play calling as a problem.
No one was claiming our O was fine last year, just that Henning did a good job. I know Henning's references are. What are yours? Do NOT misunderstand. I do respect your opinion, same as all here. Do you believe yourself to be a better OC than Henning?
Where would you even get the impression that I'm questioning Henning much less saying that I'm better than him as an OC? Are you reading somebody else's post, or have me confused with somebody else? This is what I said: Now, I don't blame Henning for that. I thought he did well enough with what he had. You haven't seen me complaining about Henning or the play calling. There are always differences in what I may have done on this play or that but overall I don't see his play calling as a problem. In case you're misunderstanding, that means that I don't blame Henning and that I think he did fine. See, where I said "I don't blame Henning" and where I said "I don't see his play calling as a problem"? Or where I said "You haven't seen me complaining about Henning or the play calling"?
I'm just tired of seeing that stat brought up every time somebody wants to claim our offense was good. It's no more indicative than the same stat being used to claim our defensive play calling was good. I didn't disagree with the opinion about Henning. I just disagreed with what was claimed support the opinion.