The schedule lightens but I certainly don't see Chicago, Oakland and buffalo as locks. The raiders have scored 92 points in 2 weeks. I don't care who they were playing. That's damn impressive. Even Cleveland's "D" is playing much better. We're going to be in tight games with all those teams since we can't put anybody away early and don't even really try to. Eventually, you are going to lose your share of those "gimmes"
I stand by what I said. I see Chicago, Oakland, Clevaland, Detroit and Buffalo as teams that are still AT LEAST as good at beating themselves as they are at beating other teams. They're teams that may beat other weak teams, but I think Miami's style matches up well against them and they will win 4 of 5. I'm 6-0 on the season and given that I'm predicting a loss to the Ravens, I'd happily accept 6-1.
Back to the play action topic,,, Henne has been more comfortable with an under center snap, because he would like to keep his eyes on the defense and not lose track of people in the split second it takes to focus on the ball into his hands. I think perhaps the play fake is the same thing. In order to really carry it out effectively its hard to stay focused on the defense, so he kinda cheats on it and doesn't carry it out well so he can keep his eyes downfield... just a thought
Because being a official at the professional level is the same in all sports. Only the game and the rules are different. As a official, your job is still the same. in the offseason, we would actually have discussions with officials from other sports to help each other in our own sport. You may not understand this, but it's the way it is.
Keep in mind that I thought there was a reveal by Brandon Marshall when he said that Henne wanted to go into this game "taking more chances". That feeds into that interception off the play-action.
I see the play fake differently. He just doesn't have the time in his own mind to execute it fully. Watch Henne drop back. He is slow getting into the pocket although I think it is improving.
I really think he will continue to improve with play action,, penny is damn good at it and he's the guy mentoring him
He can be. He's definitely made throws the last two weeks looking down the barrel. He's just not consistent, yet. A lot of times he goes too fast through his progression. Other times his footwork fails when he senses any pressure around him. Henne is not the most accurate as it is, and when he loses his footwork, he tends to miss on elementary throws.
and yeah killer I think that is a big part of it, not comfortable with it yet, feels rushed, hurried,,,, but I think its coming along,, actually I think we are saying the same thing with different words.
Upon further review, I'm an idiot for not noticing so mind-numbingly stupid and obvious until now. That was 3rd & 10. 3rd. &. 10. Why the **** WOULD the defense bite on a 3rd & 10 play-action? What is this, Madden? Sweet Christ I am tired of defending incredibly stupid calls by Dan Henning.
I have one thought and it is that this is one of the more odd above .500 teams that I have seen. A lot of weird stuff happening this year.
Well, in defense of Henning, if he's stupid enough to call running plays on 3rd and long multiple times this season, then he's dumb enough to call play action on 3rd and 10. Wait... I guess that's not really defending him.
Have to hand it to him for finally getting deep up in the pocket more and more. The line is giving him a very good pocket and it looks like they've forced it in his mind that it can be a very good place to be. I noticed last week that he got right behind Berger and he had a nice blanket around him. He, as you said, rushed threw his progression and hit the second mark which was complete but had he waited, it looked like the deep route was about to open up on the replay.
We play much our main wildcard competition in Balt, Tenn, NE, and NY, so we have a great opportunity to at least win the tiebreaker if we're 10-6. The Jets still have Houston, NE, us, and Pitt......... and they're barely winning their games and are looking bad in their losses (offensively at least). I don't see them holding up. NE: Pitt, Indy, us, NY, and GB left..... and @ Chicago which I highlight b/c of the Pats young secondary (and I could add @ Det as a darkhorse b/c their offense could give NE a fit). Balt: us, Atlanta, TB, Pitt, Houston, NO. If we can beat them, I don't think they can recover to take a wildcard spot from us. Tenn: us, Wash, Houston, Jax, Indy, Houston, KC, Indy. I think they're screwed, especially w/o Britt for a few weeks (thank you Kenny's hammy ) Houston: Indy, SD, Jax, Tenn, NY, Philly, Balt, Tenn, Jax. Ouch. Indy: Houston, Philly, NE, SD, Dallas, Tenn, Jax, Tenn. Ouch also. If NY can beat the Pats, then we could very well be playing NE in week 17 for the division title. How tense would that game be!!
Makes me think part of the Bengals game plan was to target him, seeing he has been susceptible to the big burn this season... And they seemed to flounder after Smith came in.
The problem with the Baltimore game i fear is that we will shorten the field, Henning will call a conservative game with dumps/screens, short routes. Stay in it but don't stretch the field. As we saw Fitzpatrick had great success keeping their front 7 out of the action and going deep. They put up an incredible amount of points in the game vs a prideful ravens d. The way we come at them will feed right into their strengths. Stopping the run and attacking the ball carrier in droves. If we don't force the longer throws before we are forced to do so we could have trouble putting up points against BAL. Buffalo showed how you can attack that D, I just don't think we will approach it the same way. Could be a lot of punts and FG's on offense come sunday. Again another frightfully close game with whoever making the last mistake will lose. Not to say we can't win that style of game just not certain we will. Should be intersting.
Hey CK, do you remember the play action on 4th and Long last year against the Saints at the end of the game? It was 4th and Long, had to convert or lose, and we did play action. I was so mad I was screaming with nobody else in the room.
Just to get away from the Moss drama right now, I was curious about the Miami ground game in general so I took to the tape. Kudos to NFL Rewind for revamping their system making it much easier to navigate plays. Anyway, right away the thing that is standing out to me is that Ronnie Brown had a very poor start setting up and following his blockers. The vision just wasn't there. It's like the return of the infamous issue we always noticed where Ronnie Brown in his first 5 carries just lacked a feel for how the blocks were going to develop and how he needed to get on the sidelines and see the camera shots to get an idea of how he should play things. Another thing I'm noticing is they did satisfy our request and run some out of 3-WR formations. I thought the blocking and the spacing were there on those plays early, but Ronnie Brown was not. Another formation they kept going back to all game long was the double wingback look with Anthony Fasano and Lou Polite lined up as wingbacks or A-backs whatever you want to call it. This to me was a confusing choice of the coaches' all game long. I don't see the benefits, I only see the costs. With Anthony Fasano not on the line, he can't engage a defensive lineman off the ball. Therefore, our OLs were not free to get out immediately to the next level. On one play Berger is stuck with the guard trying to dig Tank Johnson out of a hole and literally all three linebackers are free to figure out what they want to do and figure out the best plan for getting to the runner. Another play, Incognito is able to trap Tank, but Berger still has to double one of their DTs at initial pop and by the time he gets off to try and get the MLB it's too late because he's pulled the trigger and he gets right by Berger. What I don't like about this formation is it gives all three linebackers too much time to figure out what they're going to do and put themselves in position. By the formation alone they've been given this time, because both wingbacks are behind the OL off the line. They ran this 3 times for 7 yards all with Ronnie Brown and it just wasn't doing it for me. Ronnie couldn't even break contain to the outside because the linebackers had so much time that if he started to show that during his approach they'd have broken with him and left the A-Backs in the dust. There was also a lot of running out of heavy 1-WR formations. This also GENERALLY was not doing it for me. The Dolphins just do not seem to be doing well with a mass of bodies. However, there were NOTABLE exceptions. Late in the game you'll notice that Ricky had two big runs, an 18 yarder to get us near the goal line, and a 10 yarder that literally put us in victory formation. Both of these runs had MOTION and COUNTER elements to them. Ricky did a good job getting the defense flowing one way, then breaking back to where he had a lead blocker and the back side containment was weak. These were Ricky's best runs of the day. ************************************************** Ronnie Wingback 2-Deep - 4 yards Ronnie 3-WR vs 2-Deep - 3 yards Ronnie 3-WR vs 2-Deep - 3 yards Ronnie I-Formation vs 2-Deep - 5 yards Ronnie Wingback vs 2-Deep - 1 yard Ricky I-Formation TE Motion vs Single-High - 6 yards Ricky Draw 3-WR vs 2-Deep - 5 yards Ricky Wildcat vs Single-High - 0 yards Ronnie Toss I-Formation TE Motion vs Single-High - 0 yards Ricky 3-WR vs Single-High - 0 yards (base personnel, Rivers on Bess) (hurry) Ronnie 3-WR TE Motion vs Single-High - 6 yards (hurry) Ronnie Shotgun Draw 3-WR TE Wide vs Single-High - 13 yards (scramble outside) (hurry) Ronnie 3-WR TE Motion vs 2-Deep - 13 yards Ricky 3-WR TE Motion vs 2-Deep - 4 yards Ronnie Wingback vs 2-Deep - 2 yards Ronnie Heavy 2-TE FB vs Single-High - 1 yard Ronnie Heavy 2-TE FB vs Single-High - 2 yards Polite Short Yards - 2 yards Polite Heavy 2-TE FB Dive vs 2-Deep - 4 yards Ronnie 3-WR vs 2-Deep - 1 yard (3rd & 6 - Polite just didn't win) Hartline I-Formation TE Motion vs 0-Deep - 30 yards Ricky Heavy 2-TE FB Counter vs 2-Deep - 18 yards Ricky Jumbo Goal Line - Touchdown Ronnie I-Formation TE Motion vs Single-High - 4 yards Ronnie Wildcat - 2 yards Ricky Heavy 2-TE FB vs Single-High - 3 yards (clock killing mode) Ricky Heavy 2-TE FB Counter vs Single-High - 10 yards ************************************************** It's clear that Miami continues to do their best running at the very least with Ronnie Brown from the 3-WR formation. They ran 9 times for 48 yards out of that personnel package. Some of that was in hurry up mode close to the end of half-time. The thing you clearly don't want to happen is for you to drop your 3-WR personnel onto the field, have them keep their base personnel package out there, and then run the ball anyway. You need to check into a pass in that situation. The end-around was really a pretty good call considering they'd shown the I-Formation with Hartline tight to the formation, and they caught a glimpse of how the Bengals were playing it. On this occasion for whatever reason the Bengals were actually in a zero-cover. Wildcat continues not to work. Like I said, these guys just aren't doing it in a pile of bodies like they used to. They need spacing.
Oh and another thing, I don't think Sparano was calling plays. When he was covering his mouth and talking into the mic it was generally during plays, and he was probably doing exactly what he said a month ago which is to talk to Henning about the general direction of the offense. He didn't seem all that pleased about the Wildcat calls when the team was up by 8 points.