Why do a lot of people here not have faith in Brian Hartline?

There's parts to his game that make me want to be patient, to see where his talent take's him...I want to see how Sparano interpret's intelligence..He is Hart's biggest fan, and has basically called him a genius on several occasion's. I wanna see how that kind of IQ, combined with the raw natural talent he does have, evolves.

 

let me tell you somethin, that game against tennesee at home....just got really really tough...lol...these next 2 weeks are gonna be brutal, lol.....

Great exp for our young team.

 

I think the Fins will surprise a lot of people over the next two weeks.

We didn't need that last TD against Cinci last week....we could have sat on it like we always do late in the 4th. On that final drive, the NFL drive of the week, I think something clicked into place. Maybe it was Henning, maybe it was Henne, but I think someone probably said...Holy S#it, I finally get it!

If our offense even halfway shows up over the next two weeks, they'll be blowout wins (and by blowout, I mean a Miami blowout...we'll win each 21-10, 28-14, etc).

 

Honestly I think it is about the same. Since Britt is going to be out.

 

Well have you seen their quarterback and seen ours? I mean the placement of Manning's passes sometimes makes me laugh and just scratch my head. His ball placement is just ridiculous and I often wonder how he manages to put the ball in the exact spot every single time where his receiver and ONLY his receiver can get it.

 

Toddphins, it is a problem of interchanged terminology. If you sat down in a classroom and Vince Lombardi was going to teach you his offense, he would start by drawing a split back formation with a flanker just outside a TE on one side of a formation and a split end on the other side. The flanker is labeled Z to signify the receiver on the side of the strength of his base formation. Identification had to start somewhere. The TE was labeled by the offense with a Y. The split end would be labeled with an X. Thus he is the weakside receiver. There are some on the defensive side of the ball that followed the same terminology. There were others that did not follow the same terminology FOR THE DEFENSE. Someone at some point (I do not know who) started labeling them by priority. The priority is designed by strength of formation.

It is the offense that describes the characteristics of the Z. The Z is on the strong side with the TE. He is going to be the stud as he would be tighter in the formation (flanker) and would be asked to block linemen and linebackers in close proximity. The X could be the scrawny fellow as he would always be split. Remember that it WAS a running game. The X or split end could crack a linebacker or safety which was an advantageous alignment in BLOCKING assignment. So he didn't have to be a stud.

The DEFENSE labeled the Z with a 1. The X is labeled with a 2. Interestingly the TE was not labeled with a number. So in the same terminology you get a slot labeled with a 3. So the 1 is NOT an offensive label. It is a defensive label and that is only to distinguish him as the receiver who normally runs the routes on the strong side.

The point? Our number 1 receiver is none other than Brian Hartline.

 

Brandon Marshall is doing very well all things considered and actually it's a fairly simple system to learn.

 

I can't speak for everyone, but I've been down and not having faith it Hartline, because he hasn't been good. He's our #2 WR across from one of the best in the game! He needs to produce. Now I know he's in his 2nd season. I wouldn't be saying any of this if he was our #3/occasional flanker. Instead, he needs to produce!!

This is NFL, we don't have time to ***** foot around.

 

(smacks forehead)

 

just a typical sophomore slump for a WR. He'll have a better second half.

 

I have no issue with development but he has taken a step back this year. So its either him, the QB or the coaches. The last 2 aren't dropping the ball. If he played this year like he did last with Marshall now on the team it would really help open up the offense. I do think he will be fine and maybe the Moss thing will light a fire under his ***.

And I really want that CORNBREAD jersey bad.

 

He's on pace for about 60 catches and about 700 yards, and that's after having a big 0-fer in buffalo...he's fine..chill out folks.

 

and a lot more ... the guy is our next great receiver. very intelligent & combative. he is a deep & a vertical threat, tough mentally & physically & has excellent hands. he is a future pro-bowler, just needs a little time to make the next step up

 

Hartline was only averaging a bit over 3 catches a game and 39 yards a game when he was the #2. That's in every sense of the words NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Ironically being pushed to the #4 slot we got better production out of him.

 

Agreed 23rd.

 

Stats stats stats....sigh

 

Exactly, this is a Right Now League, Greg Camarillo was traded and Randy Moss passed on, both could have easily filled his role and given better production than Hartline has had so far this season.

I do like him as a Wr and he can occasionally make big plays, but he at least needs to be more consistent and catch the balls he should and so far he has not been doing that much.

How could he drop that pass on the throwback play to Chad Henne?

 

well you can't use stats for your argument in one post and then dismiss them when someone uses them in a post that disagrees....

He's almost already at last years numbers

 

And Hartline really grew last year as the season went on. Outside of the drop last week, he's been pretty solid the last three weeks.

I expect more from him as the season goes on. He's got a lot of talent, it just needs more time to come out!

 

no f-that...he has to do it RIGHT NOW ... like...THURSDAY RIGHT NOW...screw it..Roberto Wallace is clearly better despite doing nothing but getting a penalty.

 

Brian Hartline is a second year player and sometimes what you see in those guys is an increase in workload and responsibility that out-strips their increase in skill, aka the 'sophomore slump'.

What I find interesting though is that if you take aside that Buffalo outing which was bad for the offense on many fronts and most especially for him, he's produced about 1.47 yards per snap over the last 6 games, counting snaps where he's out in a pass pattern or running the ball on end-arounds. That's not counting pass interference calls (I think he's drawn 2 of them this year).

That's actually not that bad. It's not the 2.0 yards per route that he produced last year as a part-time player but...well, Cam Wake TECHNICALLY isn't as proficient a pass rusher as he was a year ago but there's a difference between coming in and doing something on occasion and coming in and doing something while taking 80% of the snaps as a starter.

The most concerning thing to me is just fit. This year anyway, he's not a guy that's creating big plays or pass interference deep. He was last year but not this year. Makes you wonder if the Dolphins would be better off with a player that has the same overall skill level and value, but is just stylistically a little bit different.

 

I'm a Roberto "lil Beast" Wallace watcher and he is not ready to be a full time starting Wr, his role would be best as running a couple of routes in the Red Zone or on 3rd down, or as a quasi Wr/Te who blocks on running plays.

 

I like Wallace too..actually I love the kids potential, but I don't know why a guy like him gets so much love while Hartline gets scrutinized so heavily.

 

Because Hartline is not doing very well with his opportunity to be a Starting Wr, so much so he was benched to start the Cinci game.

 

You could make a fair argument that it's not so much Hartline playing poorly, but Bess playing incredibly well.

 

He played 45 snaps to Davone Bess' 38 snaps. The "start" was a symbolic reward for the work that Davone Bess has put in. Nothing really changed about the way they use the two players.

Jason Allen also "started" over Sean Smith. But Allen played 15 snaps while Smith played 50 so you tell me what was going on there.

 

If you don't think Hartline was sent a message Ck, then I don't know what to tell you, why do you suppose Roberto Wallace was out there running routes, happiness with Hartline's performance?

 

Wow, not to derail the thread, but JA only played 15 snaps, how many was he targeted on? 9-10?

His play fell back to earth dramatically

 

You don't have to tell me anything. It was clear Davone was being rewarded for his good work by getting the symbolic "start" but that his workload wasn't really changed much if at all.

Roberto Wallace was in the game for 10 plays. He was getting 5 plays a game before, then he got 10 plays, because he'd been doing well.

Davone Bess had been taking 51% of possible snaps prior to the Cincinnati game. Anyone want to guess what percentage 37 out of 73 is? Any takers?

 

....

 

He was only really targeted twice. That's the thing a lot of people think he had two balls caught on him in that first drive but really the first ball that went in his direction was not his coverage responsibility. He had the long one thrown to him to Terrell Owens on the sidelines and that ball was very NEARLY caught, Jason was clearly beaten on the play and Owens just barely didn't secure the ball before going out of bounds. And then he had the touchdown caught on him.

The Dolphins didn't wait for Jason Allen to polish off a statistical nightmare of a day before they went to Smith and never looked back. They saw those two throws, thanked their lucky stars that it wasn't worse (thankful that Owens barely missed that deep ball) and said to Jason sorry but you're outta here.

 

To be fair, Bess has dropped only one less pass than Hartline, and has an equal number of turnovers - yet we seem to make excuses for Bess but reach for any opportunity to lambast Hartline.

I'm not attacking Bess with this post, I just see a gross double-standard with what we expect from our receivers.

 

To be fair, he hasn't regressed.

in 2009, Hartline had 31 catches for 506 yards. This year he is on pace to have 57 catches for 656 yards. His yards per game have gone up from 31.6 to 47.8.

Reliability is subjective here as he's only got one fumble and two drops on his resume. Given how our receivers have been the last couple of years, I'd say that's an improvement.

 

So where is that little time for Henne? Hartline has even had more starts than him.

 

He HAS regressed. and two drops is hog wash.

you cant compare last years numbers, because he did that in limited snaps, where as this year, hes starting, playing almost every down across from one of the best WRs in the NFL, and only 150 more yards is a good thing?

 

That analysis doesn't account for the severe increase in Hartline's playing time from 2009 to 2010.

When he plays in this Baltimore game in all likelihood he will come out of it having played more snaps in 8 games this year than he had in 16 games a year ago.

 

Last year he either ran a route or carried the ball 257 times. He created 535 yards in those opportunities.

This year he's run a route or carried the ball 248 times. He has created 314 yards in those opportunities.

Clearly he's dropped off some.

 

I don't know about a GROSS double-standard. I think you bring up a good point that Davone Bess is responsible for as many turnovers and has only dropped one less ball.

However the fact of the matter is Bess is the punt returner not Hartline, so talking about Bess' turnover on the punt return is total apples to oranges because you have no idea if Hartline could return punts better.

Secondly, I for one am not going to dig on Hartline due to his drops. The drops have been been bad but not terrible IMO, and it's a popular myth that Davone Bess doesn't drop the ball, he does drop the ball and so does Brandon Marshall.

Davone Bess has been WITHOUT A DOUBT the more productive and valuable receiver. He creates over 2.4 yards per pass play on plays when he's out running a route. That's almost twice as productive as Hartline even if you include Brian's end-around yardage.