Henne vs Matt Ryan; A QB who's been impaired by his team vs one helped by it.

We can remove one of those losses from the 100+ column if we don't account for Henne's 17 yards vs Cleveland. Our backs rushed for 97 yards that game with a long run of 9 yards.

I think the surprise in his stats comes back to the playcalling and its conservatism once we had a lead, because from my eyes, I saw 2 different offenses out there.
IMO the lower YPA is indicative of the conservatism; I also think we have to account for the lack of TDs that were thrown on those nice ball controlled drives where Henning gave Henne few opportunities inside the 35.

We could also consider stuff like the first half of the Lions game (when the ground game was solid prior to injury) when Henne was on fire; after the Oline shuffled and ground game collapsed, Henne had problems (not to mention receivers falling down or not finishing routes). If the defense doesn't give up points with 5 minutes left to play and the ground game can finish the game rather than forcing Chad to throw into a 20MPH wind with no #1 TE and no starting flanker, then we win the game and Chad's stats look great.

There was the INT in the Packer game where Brandon fell down, and the missed TD by Brandon b/c he didn't get his foot in bounds.

There's the dropped wheel route by Cobbs vs Cincy that leads to an INT 2 plays later, and then you have Henning giving Chad few chances to throw a TD inside FG range when we did move the ball.

The 2nd Jets game saw 28 carries for 94 yards if you take away Henne's 7 on scrambles.

If we remove the Jets, Browns, and 2nd half of the Lions game (since the ground game didn't do anything during these 10 quarters), I think we see an entirely different outcome.

I believe there were highs and lows that balanced themselves out, leading to the 73 rating. If you remove Henning's conservatism and take away the ground game's inability to close out a win, then I think you're left with mostly the highs when we rushed for 100+.

IMO the best way to do it would be to break down Henne's performance on a drive by drive (or quarter by quarter) basis when the ground game is doing well verses sucking arse. I think we'd see a QB with a rating near 100 when the ground game is contributing verse a 50ish rating when the ground game was a hindrance.

His success and lack there of appeared no different to me than when Ryan, Flacco, Freeman, and Sanchez were in the same situation. Go back and watch Freeman vs the Steelers. He looks pedestrian compared to Henne when watching their performances vs the same great defense. All these young guys looked mediocre when their ground game stalled. The tape doesn't lie.

 

IMO those games came down to us being severely out coached.

 

I'm actually not absolving Henne of any faults. There's a difference between making excuses for a player and pointing out legitimate areas of the game that greatly affected his play.

When I went back and watched Matt Ryan, he was faced with far less unfavorable circumstances, and those fewer unfavorable circumstances were also to a lesser degree of severity. There were also 2 polar opposite styles of running an offense, with Ryan being the benefactor of an aggressive OC who gave him the opportunities to make plays inside his opponent's territory.

Atlanta was a team that, on 4th & 2 at their opponent's 35, would go for it and then subsequently give Ryan multiple shots at the endzone. Miami on the other hand would get to the 35, sub in the wildcat for a loss of 2 yards, run for 4 yards on the next 2 plays, and then happily kick a field goal with a HC jumping for joy on the sideline b/c the offense didn't make any mistakes to jeopardize his precious FG. You didn't see Henne make many crisp throws because you didn't see Henne having many opportunities to do so.

Teams were "expecting" our routes because Henning's offense & playcalling were predictable. After constantly & predictably using 5 step drops and max protection, it's not difficult for a trained professional to pick up on this tendency and make proper adjustments. Defenses talked about this predictability all season. There are only so many routes you can run from a 5 step drop, and with sometimes 1-2 WRs running those routes, a QB faces a difficult chance to succeed. This difficulty becomes magnified when an abominable ground game frequently leaves you in this situation in 2nd & long and 3rd & long when defenses are now able to anticipate the pass.


Yes, Flacco, Ryan, and all those guys made some nice throws, as did Henne; I'm not taking away from that, but they also made some horrendous throws right to defenders that would've been picked off and returned for 6 multiple times if they had Miami's horrid luck last year. I watched Ryan dump off a massive amount of times to backs and TEs in a handful of his games; only difference is his outlets were effective at moving the chains and picking up chunk yardage. Ditto for Flacco.

They also had receivers making some big time catches that I rarely to never saw from our group. While Roddy White is making an acrobatic diving catch in the endzone for 6 or snaring a one-handed stop and go, Marshall is busy not getting his other foot in bounds for a TD, Wallace is dropping a TD (or running out of bounds-take your pick), Hartline is botching a deep pass that hits him in the chest, Cobbs is letting a perfect wheel route pass slip right through his bread basket, Shuler & Bess are stopping routes giving defenders a clear shot at the ball, Hartline-Bess-Marshall are falling down so defenders can slip in for the pick, Marshall is batting balls up into safeties hands, and Fasano is dropping 2-3 critical, easy passes in a game that kills important drives.

While Ryan's receivers are set up in a 4-5 WR set in passing situations with 5 or 6 staying in to block, Henne is typically busy surveying the field with only 1-3 receivers on routes. And you wonder why there are check downs? lol. When a defense is prepared for the pass and the offense has only 2-3 guys available to throw to, there's gonna be some problems with guys being covered up. Despite this, Henne's stats indicate he checked down less than Ryan, Flacco, Freeman, Sanchez, or Bradford.

Roughly 40% of Henne's passes went to backs & TEs.
I'm not sure where all these "so called" checkdowns are coming from when his reception ranking goes:
1. WR 2. WR 3. WR 4. TE 5. RB.

Flacco, Freeman, Ryan, and Sanchez on the other hand had roughly 50% of their passes go to backs & TEs (some had even higher).
Flacco's #2 receiver was a back; his #4 was a TE.
Freeman's #1 receiver was a TE; #3 was a back.
Sanchez's #1 receiver was a TE; #4 was a back.
Ryan's #2 receiver was a TE; #3 was a back.

We all witnessed Thigpen reamed out for taking a shot downfield to Marshall. If a coach has prepared you to play a certain conservative way, then you play the way he wants, especially if it's your 2nd year starting. If the coach's conservative philosophy is causing the team to lose games, then hopefully the coach will recognize it and make proper adjustments; that's why he's the coach and the QB is the player. It's not up to the young, developing QB to decide how the team should play and subsequently take matters into his own hands while being openly insubordinate to his coach in front of the entire team. Showing your boss up in front of everyone is a great way to get sh!t-canned.


Again, I'm not taking away from Flacco, Ryan, or any other young QB; however, after going back and watching these guys, I do believe the distance between Henne and them is significantly less than stats suggest.
For instance, when you watch Freeman verse the Steelers (since they were a common opponent), there isn't an unbiased person alive who would take Josh over Henne based on their respective performances against that outstanding defense. There are numerous games against common opponents where the other young QBs' performances were either equal or inferior to Henne's (and that's speaking objectively).