Henne: Benching helped my game

Henne is better because Henne is a good QB.

The benching was still stupid. Of course everyone looks great now because Pennington got hurt so quickly, but they didn't know that would happen when they made the move.

 

I disagree with the benching. Basically Henne is saying that he was playing not to lose. That's primarily the fault of the coaching staff. I'm not going to say it was a good plan to make your QB play scared and lose a bunch of games in order to bench him and have come back with a F-you attitude. It would been so much smarter to not have such a tight leash to begin with.

 

I still don't agree, he played the way the coaches told him to play before the benching. There are many stories that we can quote where Sparano said we want a game manager (Pennington type), no mistakes, check down when needed.

Now they are letting him open it up some. If they did that from the beginning (Like the Jets finally realized with Sanchez early in the season) things would have been different.

They started letting him open it up in the Titian's game

I know its hindsight now, but I still believe it was wrong.

 

Its hard to say because we don't know the reason behind him being benched. If Henne was bench because the coaching staff believed it would help him reevaluate himself, then yes it looks like it worked out perfectly. But the only reason given for his benching was that "it gives us the best chance to win right now" and given that criteria it actually backfired as we are back to the same personnel less Pennington then before the switch was made.

I'd love to give Tony credit for pushing the right buttons with Henne but I have to believe the way Henne responded is more about Henne then the coach staff. That's not to say that Tony deserves some props for being able to bench Henne without disenfranchising him. Some coaches would totally loose a player that way.

 

I'll man up:



I originally thought that doing this would demoralize him, and lead to a decline in his performance. I also thought that it would lead us into an offseason where we would have more QB drama, and likely bring in someone else to groom, or overpay a vet to start.

However I will throw out a qualifier, that this was based on a belief that we would be going into the draft this year without him playing another starting snap at QB. If I had known it was only a 1-2 week bench, I don't think I'd have felt as strongly about it.

 

I agree with all that you have mentioned & what worries me the most is it took the coaching staff this long to free the reigns on Henne. They should of adjusted way sooner. Our record might of been different if they did. I guess better late than never applies here.

 

Let's be fair here though, we were playing some pretty tough opponents. Keeping Henne from losing the game was just as important as having him try to win them early on. I don't think its a coincidence that we opened up our offense almost immediately after the meat of our schedule was finished.

 

I agree with bolded. The coaches muffed this from the get go. I did agree with them benching him. I think he needed to sit for a minute and reflect what he was going to do. I never thought it would hurt his ego. QBs are just like CBs. If they let the opposing team score on them, they shrug it off and keep playing. Even Sean Smith has played better after his benching.

 

It was a gamble in a few ways..A gamble that Penny would spark the O and a Gamble it wouldn't be detrimental to Henne...It has worked out for Henne not so much for the other Chad...I think it might have acted like a "reset" button for Henne and allowed him better perspective on how he was approaching the position mentally..It seems that he has decided to be true to himself as a player and I think that is probably good news.

 

This is as stupid as the benching. What is he supposed to say.

 

I don't think they've done a good job 'raising' him, but it's a tough situation. He's a young guy, wants to do what the coaches tell him to do, and the coaches want him to tell them that they're wrong or that he doesn't like what they're giving him, so that they can fit things better to how he wants them.

I think it's funny that he notes that the week he spent injured was big in his perspective gaining. It wasn't just the benching at all. It was the experience of watching his primary backup go out there and lead the offense to its 2nd home shutout in the last 40 years.

That put quite a few more chips on his side of the table. He can make demands of them now, insist on a few more things, because what are they going to do? Put in Tyler Thigpen?

 

Benching makes you stronger, when you maintain correct form and increase resistance over time.

 

I agreed with the benching, in fact I was totally in favor of letting Penny come in and teach on the field again..Before the benching I kept talking about how he just doesnt look like himself, and that the team and him were walking on eggshells, you cant play football like that, way too tight, I believe the dude was going thru some ''being himself issues'' and needed to get checked, that's what happens when your JOb is to lead your unit to scoring points, and you wind up last doing so, you get checked..

Remember How inspiring it was to see Penny in practice, he understood that the team needed to stop tightening their sphincter so much and to let go and play more freely..

What I want to see with Henne is how he corrects his players mistakes in practice and games, have fun, but run a tight ship, dont wait for the coaches to correct mistakes when they mess up in practice or games, Henne should be right there doing it..

 

I do agree with the benching if this is the result, the Coaches didnt tell him to pass up the deeper routes.....I would wager they said: "play smart, play within the scheme, protect the ball, blah, blah, blah"....basically what all coaches want from their QB....what Henne FAILED to do in the past, and what he is NO LONGER WILLING to do is pass up the chance to go DEEPER on routes. Again, not just FLY patterns, but wait and see about 1on1 or 2on1 basically 50/50 coverage if your Receiver knows the ball is coming and the Defender doesnt...thats advantage Offense for deep completion, defensive Pass Interference, or simply spacing defenders and stretching the defense for other routes with big YAC chances.

Henne knows he FAILED to challenge the D in the past, failed to really consistently stretch and look, and stay, with deeper routes. If he has that "lightbulb" finally thats all on him, and not on Henning who always has a deeper route in the tree being run on many, many occasions.

Asking yourself to consistenly hit 6, 7, 8 shorter passes in a drive, to tally the 40+ pass attempts a game to puts points on the board, vs. taking the the 1 or 2 or 3 deeper passes/routes and big CHUNK yards is a lot. You throw is less, you eat up more yards, and most importantly you stretch and spread the D so that some of the "shorter" throws have the chance for big YAC too. That also sets up the run game. It works both ways.

Congrats to Henne, its about time son! Now go kick some ***!

 

Giving props to the FO for benching Henne and his now being more aggressive is just like how we always say "give props to the FO for realizing their mistake in drafting / signing ______ and now cutting him."

Sure - it is great that they realized their mistake - but shouldn't we be analyzing why they were making that mistake in the first place?

Henne was a gunslinger in college and came in the NFL playing scared. I can only imagine he was coached to play that way. So I am glad that the benching woke him up - but also concerned that he developed that mindset in the first place.

 

Theres also no doubt the team as a whole believes more in Chad Henne now too. I imagine guys like Hartline, John Jerry, Carey, etc looked at Chad like a different man after that Bears game. I know the defense doesn't pay too much attention to the offense, but our Defense has to think higher of Henne too after they were left on the field during the entire bears game.

 

For me Killer, its not his words about "yeah, learned from it, it was good for me, blah, blah, blah" but rather his ACTIONS vs OAK. Looking and hitting on deeper routes, then finding shorter ones what had the biggest chance for YAC (ala Moore). If he continues to lead with Actions then I too dont care about his words.

 

Okay, Henne is on all our side now...

NOW, I just hope that Marshall paid close attention to Bess in that Oakland game. To see what makes he and Henne click so well. Hartline too. Marshall needs to quit pressing so hard and just have fun and make some plays, but stay loose.

 

Thats what we needed and wanted to see....please let it continue.

 

Henne: telling coach what i didn't want helped my game

 

While I haven't agreed much with the playcalling - my point was more what they taught Henne to be as a QB - not just the plays called.

Henning has said he doesn't want his QB to win games - just to not lose them. Couple that with Henne being benched for Pennington (which had to be a fear of his from the start) and you can see where he would become overly cautious and afraid to take chances down the field.

It appears after the benching he said screw it and started being more aggressive. Pennington being hurt and not a threat and Thigpen being inept and not a threat as well as the fact that he had already been benched so he had nothing to lose could have played very strongly into his recent aggressive streak.

 

The benching worked out perfectly because Pennington got hurt immediately and Henne got to come right back it. But what would this coaching staff have done if Pennington hadn't gotten hurt and instead was just OK? I think they got bailed out by Pennington's injury.

 

The odds of Pennington not getting hurt were really pretty slim. Nobody expected just two plays but who really thought he'd make it through the season? Henne will go out there every weekend and try to be a playmaker now. If the benching was truly to see 'if it was henning or henne's fault' then it's hard to agree with. But I never saw a problem with benching him if you believed Penny was better at this point. I still don't. Everybody was screaming about him being the scapegoat and how he was going to be mentally scared and his development hurt. We see how that went. His play has been inspired and I don't think it would have been any different if the benching would have lasted several weeks. And if it had lasted through the season he could have easily come out and earned his job back in camp. We all knew Pennington could not make it through two seasons. It was not a possibility.

 

Everything I have heard Sparano or Henne talk about never comes close to painting them trying to have him play scared. Constantly Sparano has said that long passes are called and big plays are open, however for one reason or another the ball wasn't getting there. This is froma coach that generally goes out of his way to not bad mouth any of his players.

 

I don't believe like some, that the coaching staff opened it up for Henne since th Titan's game...

I few here have stated that since day one there have been receivers opened downfield in every game... and Henne had opted to check down...

Why would the coahing staff call plays for receivers to go downfield (deep), but tell Henne not to go there???

This lets us know that it was really Henne all along that was not going downfield and the coaching staff called the plays for him and he made the decisions to check down... and play it safe...

I am glad that he is taking chances now, because there are no rewards without risks...

 

It certainly helps if you run the football. I think Henne benefits more from this than anything else. They go out and sling it 35 times a game and then blame a young QB when he doesn't succeed. As it was stated on Sunday... this offense has to run the ball or at least make a defense think they are going to commit to the run for it to be successful. That is the difference before he was benched and after.

Besides if Henne doesn't say it helped to be benched he could very well be at the bottom of the ocean with a cinder block tethered to his leg.

 

So Henne is trying now but wasn't trying before. That is such bull**** bro.

 

He doesn't look more aggressive out there? I think he was trying before to not make mistakes. Now I think he's trying to win games.

 

When you run the football it opens a lot of things up. Henning stuck to it on Sunday. The Baltimore game before Henne was benched they ran the ball great on the first drive and gave up. That is the key. Either that or our passing game is just that much better without Brandon Marshall.
Henne did a great job on Sunday and obviously his attitude is tough as nails. The guy had a tough time moving and really hung in there. If the benching did help is still unanswered. We will see going forward (haha) I hope he plays lights out but I think the only chance of that happening is giving the young QB running game support.

 

“I’m not going to shy away from anything,” he added. “I’m going to try to fit the ball in tight spaces, and that’s why they brought me in here, to make some of those throws. And I’m not going to shy away from that, and just stay aggressive out there.”

Perhaps he is finally heeding Marino's advice to him "When in doubt, Let it fly". I hope he has. He was really good against Oakland, but really, he was good against Tennesee before he got hurt.

 

That says it all, the new wife must not be putting out enough. She must still be pissed about skipping the honey moon for training camp.

 

you are absolutely correct. This is a case of people wanting to blame Henning and or wanting to elevate Henne to a place where he didnt deserve quite yet. They want to believe Henne wouldve been better if it just wasnt for Henning all evidence to the contrary.

Here is an article prior to our Vikings game

The message from the Dolphins coaching staff to Chad Henne every week is relatively simple to understand if one believes in the quarterback's ability to process two seemingly different philosophies or approaches and seamlessly turn that into an acceptable performance on the field.

All Henne has to do is go out there and have fun and sling the ball around. Henne is encouraged to throw it downfield and attack the defense and do what quarterbacks do on their way to elite status or Pro Bowl appearances.

So Henne is free to take the field against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday and, as coach Tony Sparano puts it, ``cut it loose.''

But this clarion call to unleash Henne's inner gunslinger comes with a sobering and possibly confusing caution: Do not throw interceptions, Chad.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/19/1831486/message-to-henne-take-some-shots.html#ixzz16ykkQt00


Clearly the message all along to Henne was get more aggressive but he couldnt break free from his fear of making mistakes. He failed to grasp that the rules for a first year starter and a second year starter are different. A first year's starters first priority is make no mistakes and dont lose the game. He took that message to heart last year as well he could. In a second year, coaches want to see you make plays. They will still tell you not to throw picks but you are now being counted on being more than a game manager and that means taking more calculated risks and trying to make plays. The benching worked its magic by shocking Henne out of his wimpy dump off preferences. Henne is back on track and I feel good things lay in store for this team next year now that his attitude has been adjusted

 

Whatever they may be saying now, the message all season was not that they (INT vs. TD) were equal and opposite. They clearly stressed avoiding INTs over throwing TDs. And just as clearly there was a change in the play calling in the last game. They doubled their running attempts and they stopped calling play action passes in as many ridiculous situations. Henne's tight play before the benching was an obvious and logical result of the play calling and the leash they had on him. The change post benching is primarily the result of their changed message now and their improved play calling.

 

I think the improved calling has a lot to do with Sparano getting more involved in the play calling