Pennington's arm poses challanges for Dolphins

The only thing you have to remember if you start Henne right now is that you are going to have to accept the growing pains that come from starting a rookie. You saw how quickly people wrote Beck off after limited action last year, if Henne comes in and makes rookie mistakes then you have to be willing to suck it up and hope he learns from it. It also changes the direction of the team IMO, the mindset would go from winning as many games as possible (which I think is the current mindset of the FO) to developing talent and sacrificing a few wins.

I think Pennington is better right now because of the horrible depth at WR, he's better at finding the open man provided he isn't 30 yards down the field.

 

As long as we can agree on the bolded part, I think we can agree to disagree on the rest.

Starting Henne now would be a mistake for two reasons:

1. Despite our struggles, there's no reason to write this season off yet. With Brady down, playoffs are not completely out of the question, even if it is an extremely unlikely scenario. Next season is a long time away. We're playing to win games this season. That means the best QB plays until playoffs are a mathematical impossibility.

2. We don't want to put him in the same difficult situation that we put Beck in last season. Behind a offensive line that is still trying to gel, and with receivers who can't get open. It would be a disaster and could ruin him.

 

While all that is true, Henne may be giving us a better shot to win and we both agree that this teams mindset is to win as many games as possible. Honestly, I'm willing to sit the growing pains with Henne if we were to have a struggling offense for the next few weeks with Pennington as starter. As I said in my previous post, I'm not big on rookies starting but Henne may be the better fit for this team.

 

I think you might be fooling yourself into thinking Henne might give the team a better chance to win to validate the knee jerk reaction of wanting Pennington benched after week 1.

Pennington played better than Henne during the preseason, so what evidence do we have that a rookie QB is going to be a better option for this team than a seasoned veteran?

Check my track record. I'm as big a Henne fan as they come. I'm even his adopted dad (although I removed it from my sig so I could at least appear to be objective). But he's the future. Let's let him develop so that he'll be ready to take over when the time is right. That might be at the end of this season, or next. Who knows. That's up to the Sparano and Co. I trust they'll make the right decision. IMO, they won't pull the plug on Pennington unless he's injured or playoffs are out of the question.

 

I'm kind of asking, do you guys think that Henne could be a better option because he could open up the offense for us. Teams would have to respect the deep ball.

Btw, I don't want Pennington benched. I'm just asking if the offense was to continue to struggle in the next few weeks with him, would Henne be the better option?

Sorry, I've worded this whole conversation poorly.

 

Sorry for putting words in your mouth. I know you didn't say you wanted him benched, I was just wondering if that's what some are thinking.

I understand what you're saying. IMO, the fact that Henne has better arm strength wouldn't make up for the rookie mistakes he would be bound to make. Also, I don't think that better arm strength alone would be worth the risk of placing Henne into a bad situation.

The one thing I will say about Henne though, if his number is called this season, I think he has the confidence to overcome some early struggles.

 

Its no problem man, I can understand why you are wondering that.

Ooo ok. That makes sense.

I agree.

I just want to clarify that I am happy with how this team played in week one. I thought we played well even though we had some miscues. We were in the game until the end and that's huge. We are rebuilding and its a process, I think some people need to realize that and lower their expectations. I'm looking at a five win season for us.

 

That isn't rebuilding though, that's retooling.

If you are going to go through the rebuilding process (which everyone pretty much agrees that we are) then you use year one to change the attitude of the team, get them all on the same page, install the new system and get the young players much needed experience/playing time. Wins in year one are nice, but it isn't the priority, year one is about changing the culture of the team and player development. Year two of the rebuilding process is when you put it all together, everything you learned in year one will then be applied out on the field and winning becomes a priority.

If we have Penny in this year and the team decides that it's time to give Henne or Beck a shot as the starter next year, wouldn't that be taking a step backwards in the process? All of the lumps that they would have taken this year will now be taking place next year and our team won't be as strong as it could be. The same could be said, and the point made two times over, that if we wait until 2010 to put Henne or Beck in that we will be taking a step back because 2010 is when we should be thinking about the playoffs and not trying to break in an inexperienced QB.

This is why I question the direction that the FO is taking, while they say this is a rebuilding process, their actions say otherwise. If this is going to be a half-assed rebuild (or retooling) then we might not be better off than we were when Cam/Randy left or even when Saban/Wanny hit the road.

If they do put Henne in mid season and the situation is unfavorable and he struggles, will you then understand what we've been saying about Beck?

 

Can Pennington throw the ball 30 yards?

 

I think a team can admit that they are rebuilding and still make winning a priority. See the Saints in 2006. Just because a team is rebuilding doesn't mean they don't make the same effort that every other team does to get to the playoffs.

While I agree Beck was placed into a bad situation, I'm still of the mindset that Beck doesn't have the necessary tools to be a starting NFL QB. I will throw in my usual caveat of I hope he proves me wrong some day! As long as he's still with the Dolphins...

 

Not as accurately and with as much zip as you would like.

 

I hate to add fuel to the whole "Chad has a weak arm" talk, but I figured I would share the sig that I've had to sport due to a bet I made on a college alumni board I play on. Much worse than the sigs you guys have had to wear -

 

Does he have the ad of a jugs machine?

 

pull!

 

Watching that play over and over, Ginn put himself in a bad position imo. Also have to credit Revis for the good boxing out and coverage. I like Revis a whole lot. He's going to be special. Unfortunately, he's a Jet.

 

The one thing I will say about him is that he doesn't throw dumb ints. He is protective of the ball, that alone should help us win a game or two extra.

 

The Saints were a fluke and I'm not sure that they were really in rebuild mode, they did go out and spend a ton of money on Brees.

The thing with the bold text is how they go about it. If they make player development a priority they can still try to win every game, no team should ever be happy with losing or concede that they don't have a chance to win. But if they bring in aging vets in year one to play ahead of the youngsters, then they aren't really rebuilding, they are building on the fly which is another way of saying "retooling". Parcells retooled while with the Jets and he signed alot of aging vets that he was comfortable with and then split town leaving them in a cap hell. I don't want the same to happen here.

Without rehashing that whole argument, agree to disagree.

 

Yeah, it was a combination of things, Pennington putting it up at the end of the game, Ginn not getting better position and Revis playing good D. The thing is, we shouldn't have even been in that position at the end of the game, we had so many missed opportunities during the game and we ended up throwing it up at the end in desperation.

 

Yeah, I don't know if I remember this correctly, but wasn't it third down? He could have just thrown it out of bounds and had one last shot at it. Not quite sure what they saw in that play. Revis completely blanketed Ginn. That said, Ginn also has to be more physical. He looks like a little girl fighting for position on that play.

 

This has NOT been the case the last few years. All after his latest surgery. He is not the protective and careful QB he was early in his career.

Judging by that little clip, anyone think ginn would have had a better shot if the ball was launched a bit earlier (or in Penny's case, harder?).

I have to rewatch the whole thing of course, but it seems while Revis had good coverage on Ginn, he was still in front a bit. Maybe a pass to the very back of the EZ.

Oh well, spilt milk.