Game 8..rewind thoughts..Team and Henne..

That's how I feel. We all know he didn't play up to the level of Aaron Rodgers' SB season, but how many of us truly expected a 2nd year starter to do so?
I only compare him to how I expected him to perform in year 2 based on his talent level, potential, and playing environment.

If I only went by the stats and win-loss column, I'd say he underperformed.
If I instead went by the unfavorable situation he was placed in, the playcalling, the lack of opportunities inside FG range, the horrible starting field position, no running game, little offensive diversity, expectedly poor chemistry with his receivers b/c of all the shuffling & injuries, a late season break down in pass protection, knee injury, and numerous INTs from receiver error, then I'd say he performed admirably for a 2nd year starter---- leaving me with optimism for 2011.

Henne may or may not ever become elite, but I do believe with a great defense and solid special teams, he can be a top 10 QB in the right offense, with the right OC, and proper surrounding cast. I know he threw more INTs in 2010, but IMO his decision making improved noticeably compared to 2009, so I don't see why it wont continue. He gradually became more cognizant of using his feet to evade sacks and extend drives, so I think that aspect will also continue to develop.

We all know he's elite as a 3rd down converter; Bess, Marshall, and DT should keep that constant.
He actually played well on first down; no reason to think this won't improve with the offseason additions/changes.
He was statistically equal to Brees in the redzone; no reason to believe this won't improve either after another year of seasoning, the playmakers we added, and hopefully a more aggressive Daboll calling plays.

If we add these 3 together (1st down, 3rd down & non-long, and redzone) with projected improvement, Chad's likely a 100 rated passer in these 3 combined b/c he was roughly in the 90's in 2010.

Statistically, the wheels fell off for Chad on 2nd down and 3rd & long (these 2 scenarios are what reduced him to a 75 rating). I attribute much of this to a ground game we saw repeatedly fail on 1st down, putting us in all those daunting 2nd & long and 3rd & long scenarios where history predicts a likelihood of failure. If we can see more 2nd & 5's or 6's, I think we'll see Chad's 2nd down performance increase significantly as the ground game's hopeful success will minimize our 2nd down predictability. Many of those 3rd & longs that we sucked at (doesn't help when our personnel wasn't geared for this situation) will now become 3rd and manageable, and we're well aware of what Henne's league leading success here.

I don't expect a Tom Brady transformation by any means; however I do see enough areas of likely improvement to where Chad can be a QB we win a SB with.
I believe he can become the type of player good enough to get the job done (mixed with some outstanding performances) to where we're not constantly prioritizing a replacement for the next 8 years...... but that doesn't mean we can't use mid round picks on developmental guys with upside to challenge him.

Depending on our health, Daboll, rookie development, and if we add a playmaking back, I could honestly see Henne breaking out with a 3800+ yard season, 7.3 avg, 62.5 %, 23 TDs, 13 INTs, and an 88-92 QB rating.

 

Fixed.

 

I'm curious to see if you think this 91 QBR was indicative of better QB performance than we saw the previous few weeks.

 

That depends if we invite KingMo & NaboCane..... and whether or not this is occurs in Nabo's basement.

 

Is it a basement or strictly speaking more what one would call a dungeon?

 

Did you just more or less do this off the top of your head with the numbers? Because that is about exactly what his QB rating would be with those numbers.
Say if a QB has 525 atts, 330 comps, 3800 yds, 23 td 13 int., it comes out as a 62.8 comp pct, 7.2 ypa and a 88.9 QB rating. Amazing if you just put some arbitrary numbers out there to hit what the QB rating would be so closely. This makes you kind of like Rain Man, but for football stats. Is your name really Raymond Babbitt and do you buy your boxer shorts at K Mart?

Now I ain't watched replays of late as DJ has, but that is one thing that seems mind numbing to me...how many times, once we got to the opposition's 35-25 area, and no matter how well Henne moved the team, that he would be pulled for the WC. This was usually not even the WC from 2008, with Ricky motioning across, or the unbalanced line, it was just shotgun snap to Ronnie and hit the A or B gap.

 

I think it will have more to do with better playcalling. I know we went 5 wide a bit in the titans game. All of a sudden Henne had options and the defense was forced to cover several guys and not just the 3 we'd send out on a route. The wildcat also worked against the Titans, at least better than it had all season.

 

probably dungeon...... basement dungeon.

 

Eating Rainbow Stew with a silver spoon
Underneath that sky of blue
We'll all be drinking free Bubble Up
And eating that Rainbow Stew

 

I just did it off the top of my head, baldy.
Initially I was going with 88-90, but I thought I'd add in 2 extra points for optimistic measure. lol.

Thank you?

to quote the occasionally but rarely wise Oz.......... "shaddup".

I'm so annoyingly curious about it that I'm gonna cave and break down how many times (including percentage) Henning actually did this to Chad.

 

Henning drew that game plan up for Pennington. B/c we weren't doing much frm the empty set or even sending 5 receivers out. All of a sudden Penny is supposed to be the QB and voila. Coincidence maybe, but given my pre-existing opinion of Henning, IMO it was conscious decision to pen things up once Henne was on the bench. We'll never know b/c Vernon Carey was late out his stance on the 1st play of the game. RT is seriously on my radar for 2012.

 

Why am I thinking of black leather and the walls will have whips and chains hanging from them?

It's all cool just so long as there's a really big flat screen TV, comfy chairs and lots of good pizza from Snoose Junction and good micro beer. Sealth is full of good pizza joints and the Northwest has the best of microbreweries.

 

No idea where GMJ is, but Todd and DJ, it is like 3:30 am on the east coast. Do you fellas ever sleep??

 

Because you're excited? Fond memories of childhood?

Where the heck's Snoose Junction? What place are we watching this game? You talking when you're back in Oregon?

Somehow we need a bet involved----- closest of us 3 to guess the first half score gets to tie up KingMo in full gear and whip the bejesus out of him till Henne throws a TD.



Too much?

 

Ambien is kicking in right about now (on my last bottle, then it's quittin time........ until I get my next one).

I didn't know DJ is on the east coast right now.

 

If we gonna watch in Nabo's basement dungeon he lives in Seattle aka Sealth, and one of the neighborhoods, Ballard, is known as Snoose Junction because it was settled originally by mostly Swedes. I remember pizza joints there, as good as any in the world. That was only 30 years ago, so I'm sure nothing has changed.

I like the idea of whipping KingMo, maybe Nabo can give us some pointers, so KingMo derives the most pleasure.

 

DJ... first let me thank you for taking the time and effort, to prove your point...

Now, I do believe that we are lacking speed in any of our Offensive skilled positions, and this is where I believe this team lacks it's playmaker. This is an area that most good-great teams have...

As for Henne... Doubters will still doubt and supporters (not jockstraps) will still support...

IMO, we will only see the best of what Henne has to give, by giving him weapons. IMO, as with many Marshalis a posession WR, with big play ability, but can be restrained if he is the only weapon that the defense can key on...

Again great write up on all your game recaps, and keep the lights on...

 

Well, since I'm neither, wow DJ, I didn't know he meant that much to you.

 

The few things I remember from this game--horrendous play-calling. Well, just horrendously going away from running the football with Ronnie Brown, after he went hay-wire on the 1st drive and was going nuts.

The Chad Henne missed TD to Fasano was abominable. That's a miss that guys like Joey Harrington, Heath Shuler, JaMarcus Russell make. Not a guy that expects himself to be the QB of a team with, from my perspective, the ability to compete for a playoff spot. That throw only doesn't make him one of those QB's, but it was a horrendous throw. No doubt in my mind, Chad Pennington makes that throw. Hell, we ran the same play against Buffalo and scored. Henne did everything right, except make the throw. By the way, THOSE are the throws that make guys think "can this guy get us in the end zone? Can we win this guy?" As a former player (baseball, not football), it's when guys don't make the plays they should make that really frustrate you to no end.

I remember that throw over Ray Lewis, DJ. That was an AWESOME throw. Then again, I've seen those throws. I haven't seen the TD throws. I haven't seen those throws in December. I haven't seen those throws when the Dolphins are 7-6 and need wins to get into the playoffs. I haven't seen those throws then. He shows flashes, it's just inconsistency.

With all that said on Henne, and he didn't have a good game, we were dominated up front (both DL & OL) and we had absolutely no answer for Ray Rice out of the backfield as a receiving threat. I mean I remember a few plays where Dierdorf showed that we didn't cover the guy out of the backfield. We don't match up well to the Ravens at all. We don't have that guy to make big plays, and we don't have the QB with the ability or experience to break down that defense. I think with a healthy Dansby & Edds we can be better on defense against Ray Rice out of the backfield.

 

Just look at his TD to Marshall in the second Jets game. That was one of those throws. Dude was 10 TD 2 INT in the Red zone I believe.

 

It's a 5some if you include Nabo and the "it". just sayin. Don't be jealous.

 

It's definitely perform or go home time; I'm merely more optimistic about the "perform" part b/c of the extenuating circumstances last season that would've given any NFL QB fits. That's all. Henne still has much improving to do, but I believe he's capable of such, which is why it's my opinion that it would help him all the more if the fan base supported him.

 

That's why I think he was drafted in the 2nd round despite having 1st round talent---- b/c he's the type of player who would need extra repetition and some time to put it all together, which he's gradually doing IMO.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with sticking to your beliefs like that. That's not randomly insulting the guy; you have a specific belief about an aspect of play that may or may not hinder his performance, so that should be respected.

Since we're talking about an NFL QB still in his developmental stage, IMO it's no different than us assessing college talent and profiling a player based on what we feel he will or wont become. Sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong. Only difference is now the player is a Dolphin, so the stakes are higher, as are the tension levels and emotional ties involved.

A large number of fans seem hell bent on wanting Henne to actually fail so that we can bring in another QB who might pose a closer replica of Marino and HOF potential. I think that's absurd and disgraceful to the team and fan base as a whole. I also don't see you in that category. IMO it's one thing to believe that he doesn't have what it takes; it's something entirely different to hope he fails in order to prove yourself right or move on to the next guy.

If Henne tears it up this season, you're entitled to have all the pleasure in rooting for his success that you want w/o feeling 2 faced in the process. I can't say the same for others around here. It's gonna be an unbearable season for some fans if Chad actually has a solid year and contributes to a post season appearance. It'll be like rooting for the team who ran over your dog or knocked up your 16 year old daughter.

 

That was a very good throw. We can go all day about saying this was good, and this was bad (like the missed throw to Brandon Marshall on a great play that had him going in motion and Henne threw it well behind him). I mean that's my point. He's got consistency issues and most of the time, it's on throws where the pressure is a little higher (the redzone & 4th quarter).

I appreciate the stat, but that doesn't hold water for me. MOST QB's will have numbers where TD's are grossly higher than INT's, if they don't they're generally pulled. The red zone is an area where most QB's protect the ball (and where the OC really makes his money IMO--which ours didn't earn).

 

Hope you thought about me as a... f..r..i..e..n..d... ...

don't want others to be jealous......

and by properly assessing Henne's performance through 8 games...

You want to access his skewed stats? Just lasso up the numbers you would want him to have and put it through a QBR calculator...

and I am no math genious, but I did stay in a few Holiday Inn Expresses in my time...

 

That's why I think the stats are bogus too. Henne did the opposite of Culpepper most of the year. We had a run game that predicted a high level of failure and ranked 29th in starting field position, yet we were 11th best in punts per drive percentage. What does that tell you? To me, it means someone was making up for the horrible ground game and moving us down the field to earn that 11th ranking.... and after re-watching the games, it was obvious at least to me that Henne was that guy. So the problem wasn't us moving the ball; it was converting those drives.

What happened once we crossed the 40 yard line? Rewatching tape and playing close attention to that makes the answer stick out like a sore thumb. We didn't score b/c we made no aggressive attempts to score, and all too often we took the ball out of the hands of the guy (who drove us down the field) so that a WC or normal run could gain little or no yards leading to a FG.

Henne's stats sucked b/c we gave him very few opportunities. Yes, I agree that he missed plays, but so does everyone; he simply wasn't given enough opportunities to make up for those misses. IMO the misses only stood out b/c he was given so few attempts to redeem himself like other QBs are afforded.

Probably 60+% of our play calling would be passes during the meat of the drive, and then once we crossed the 40 yard line, Henne's number would get called 1/3 or 1/4 of the time. Once inside FG range, Henne's lucky to see 3 more pass attempts for the drive while Henning shuts down to pu$$y ball mode (where as teams like the Falcons were a polar opposite with Matt Ryan-- they'd go for 4th downs in FG range and give Ryan multiple shots at TDs. He would miss a throw or 2, but those extra opportunities allowed him to finally hit on one and make the bad throws completely disappear from memory).

One of these few "inside FG range" pass plays would usually <like clockwork> result in a sack, which basically leaves Chad with roughly 1-2 "actual" pass attempts every trip inside FG range; out of those, there's typically only 2 maybe 3 guys out on routes which does a QB no favors; and out of those few attempts, only 1 of them might be on a play that we have a chance of scoring a TD on. If he doesn't hit on his opportunity, then this isolated play causes us to fixate on this ONE failed attempt and judge him on this ONE failed attempt because we rarely see him given a follow-up opportunity that allows us to forget about that ONE previously failed attempt. Henne could've easily thrown for 22 TDs if he were given as many opportunities in the redzone as Sam Bradford.

Then you have stupid sh!t like Henning appearing to outsmart himself by purposefully calling plays away from Marshall b/c the defense "probably isn't expecting it", and we end up with Hartline being unable to haul in a fade that a more "qualified" recevier could've converted. Out of some of those few opportunities, we had Fasano crucial passes; there was 6'4 230 lb Wallace getting run out of bounds and then dropping the pass to boot. Then Brandon can't keep his foot inbounds on another attempt in the game. I think there were a few others but I forget. I wouldn't be using these as examples; however, when a QB doesn't get many chances to score, I think you need to throw them in. Insult to injury for not having many TD opportunities, we then have an excessive # of drive ending INTs due slips, deflections, and receivers stopping routes. Excessive INTs due to chance or receiver error combined with few TD opportunities will inevitably lead to poor QB stats and a crappy rating IMO. That's not an excuse; that's legit stuff unless people want to blame the QB for his receivers doing these things. Not having many TD opportunities also isn't an excuse; it's just a fact. Hopefully last season improved him to where he can make more out of those few opportunities if the situation repeats itself.

The only part that I feel needs legitimate addressing is the area you're concerned with----- his mental make-up, namely leadership, motivating his team, and taking this b!tch by the horns and making it his. I could understand him feeling like he's an afterthought with Henning as an OC, an offense not adjusted to fit Chad, and Pennington lurking in the background; however, this year there's no excuse. He either takes ownership and inspires others or he doesn't. I like how he's started it this offseason. That's definitely a step toward ownership and earning teammate trust IMO; but we'll see when the sh!t gets real once the season starts and unknown variables are thrown into the equation. I'm leaning towards him being OK in this department (if the deck isn't stacked against him), not spectacular but just OK, with a satisfactory 2011 season of leadership instilling greater confidence in himself, leading to a subsequent drastic jump in 2012.

I totally got wordy, but I've had like 3 cups of coffee so it's not my fault.

 

thanks. ditto on the baseball thing. At one point I was having arm problems and not starting at any other position when I wasn't pitching (I previously caught or played RF when not pitching) so when I was called in to pinch hit, even if it was a sac bunt, I just didn't feel in my normal element.

You can probably add to it, if you know your teammates are struggling in the run scoring department, then you might add even more pressure to your at bat to try and make up for their deficiency. I'm not saying that's happened to Henne, but if it were me and my opportunities were being given to a run game that wasn't effective, I'd place a huge amount of pressure on myself to make something of the few chances I got. Where did you play legion? I was in Boca myself.

I think we can take your good baseball reference/analogy one step further. IMO a QB's opportunities inside scoring range/redzone are like an at bat in baseball. You might swing and miss miserably on the first pitch, but then you still have at least 2 more pitches to find your groove and make the at bat a success.

However, what if you're called in to pinch hit for a player who already has 2 strikes? You might only get one pitch. If you swing and miss, you're done, right.

IMO Henne last year was more like "the pinch hitter" b/c he's put into situations (thanks to Henning) where he might only have 1 swing, and if he misses, it'll look like a strike out in the stat column, and people will remember him for failing the at bat. This was a frequent occurrence last season from what I remember. He still needs to make the most out of every opportunity; however, I'd like to see him having more opportunities to redeem himself and balance things out if he does happen to whiff on his first attempt.

 

The references are all decent analogies, but for me (another baseball guy, played ball in college), if you're asked to bunt you lay the bunt down. If you're asked to drive in a run, you drive in the run. Whatever your role is, and it can change within the course of a game, you go for it. Sometimes it doesn't work out, and that's the way it is. However, the thing always about sports is this. No matter how difficult the situation, if you're not getting the job done, they're going to find someone who can, because the reality is that there IS someone who can (Pennington replacing Henne last year is indicative of that). Also, the other reality is that you're going to fail and people have to realize that also. You're not going to bat 1.000 (hell 3 hits outta 10 and you're a HOF), you're not going to throw 0 interceptions through the course of the year, etc. However, you've got to make due on the "easy" plays, the "routine" plays, no matter the situation, no matter the setting, whatever. If you can't have faith in a guy to get that done, that can cause some real division amount the belief system (who thinks who can get the job done and sides forming).

I think a lot of that occurred last year with Chad Henne. One thing I always appreciated with Jay Fiedler is that you always knew what you were getting from the guy. You knew his baseline, you knew his floor, and after 2-3 years you knew his ceiling. I still don't know what I'm getting from Henne. I wonder if the coaches do?

 

Lower Alabama? That's eastern time too ain't it? Hehehe.
Kidding amigo. I thought you mentioned once being in Virginia.
But you're one of those left coasters, that explains why you are so weird.