Rewind thoughts..Dolphins vrs Falcons..

I was joking DJ. The picks were a few mistakes by a few players in the first pre-season game, after little practice, and of little importance.

 

Have to take that with a grain of salt. Easier to put blame on a usually solid WR that is popular than just saying "yeah Henne blew that one" and listening to the rain of boos.

Even if the wrong route was ran, it was still a bad pass. Just glad he hit Hartline on the long ball. Hopefully he can improve his showing.

 

Well, the concerning thing about that play is what Henne didn't do. You'd expect a QB, who is now in his 4th year in the league and 3rd year as starter to not make the worst decision possible. He should have:

1) Gone on to the next read
2) Thrown the ball away if pressured
3) If not pressured, tucked it and run.

Instead, he lobbed one up there; the worst thing he could've done. That's what concerns me about Henne; his decision-making. I can live with having to fight another down or to punt, but it's the turnovers and poor throws/decisions that he's really got to clean up. And Atlanta was the perfect time to do it, and he didn't. If not then, when? That's what I want/wanted to see from him. Obviously it's still early in preseason, but he's yet to show the ability to not make terrible decisions consistently. And that's concerning.

Don't get me wrong, he did some pretty nice things out there. He tucked it and ran for a 1st down. He stepped up in the pocket (I think you could count on a single hand the number of times he did that last year - hyperbole of course, but you get my point).

 

I am Henne'd out, give Moore some reps with the first team next game and he see what he has to offer. No more excuses for Henne!

 

That's what I don't get about Sparano. Always his lackadaisical attitude towards these things. I want guys that want and prepare to win even if it's card game inside the locker room. That's why marshall and bush didn't play? I didn't know we are evaluating Hartline and Bess. Are they about to be demoted?

We need to evaluate Sparano's game day plans and decisions, it's things like this that explains why he sucks on game day.

 

A few things.....first thanks for the great thread DJ.

I was very happy to see what I would consider a much more aggressive look from out offense...especially the first pre season game. I cannot ever remember us looking down field as much as we did......just because Sparano said Vanilla...he didnt mean 4 downs a cloud of dust obviously.

Going for the TD at the end of the half...to me...sets a good example for us to take into the regular season. In the past...we would have sat on that.

Besides the Int Henne threw that was clearly his fault...(bad route or whatever...given the throw..I cant see how that wasnt just a poor decision on his part)....I liked what I saw out of Henne. Not so much how he passed...but more how I saw him in the pocket. I dont think he fits the robot mold much anymore....the one play where he shucked the lineman...(kept his head downfield just as DJ pointed out)...and his first down run...I saw a QB who is capable of using his legs some. When Murtha got whistled for the false start...I saw Henne start jawing at him.....just a different demeanor out of Henne.

Im not gonna do the Henne vs Moore comparison....because I obviously want Henne to do well. So...I want to be careful to judge Moore objectively. I saw some good things out of him. Liked how he moved in the pocket...and he flashed a stronger arm then what I thought he had. His one pass deep that was picked....might show where his arm isnt a strength though...as he could have easily had a TD if he hadnt underthrown it. His other throw where he overthrew Gates was a bad miss....his TD to Gates was a dart...great ball.

I think our QB situation could be better then a lot had guessed it might have been.

 

Sparano said, quite surprisingly, that "we are looking for playmakers, guys who can make those plays" in re the missed throw to Hartline early and the two wrongs thing on Henne's 2nd int, this is proving to be an interesting Training Camp.

 

Why is it when we say the INT wasn't all Henne's fault, we're called excuse-makers etc by members who don't like Henne?.......... but then--- when the Head Coach says the WR had a lot to do with it, the same group of members who called us excuse makers are now trying to make excuses for what Sparano said?

That's entirely hypocritical. People can't have it both ways. They can't call us excuse makers, and then turn around and make excuses, and then say that their excuse is the right excuse, and people who disagree are homers. (not saying this to you directly, Texan; just speaking in general)

 

I respectfully disagree. Henne rarely made the same mistake twice last year, and his decision making was really no worse than any of the other young QBs. IMO most of his mistakes were due to inexperience rather than poor decision making (the 1st NE game being one example).
He had only 1 dropped INT........ and how many INTs occurred b/c a receiver fell down or batted a ball to a defender? Those aren't poor decisions. It's not like he was forcing throws into double coverage all year. Let's not forget he was in the disadvantageous situation of defenses being aware of our constant use of 5 step drops. It doesn't help improve the "mistake category" when defenses know what's coming.

It was when we put the game on his shoulders week after week did we see the mistakes happen, but as a 2nd year starter he shouldn't be placed in that position in the first place..... and he definitely shouldn't have been expected to play mistake-free ball in that role. In the first half of the year Henne's decision making was pretty solid, and Sparano praised him for it IIRC.

 

Hats off to you for putting a positive spin on it.

What I see from the same numbers is:

- One year later, the offensive line is still totally ineffective. 1.2 positive yards per carry gets you the same three and out as -0.5 yards per carry. We cannot run the ball, period, whereas Atlanta got chunk yardage going right up the gut.

- Henne deceptively looks like he has progressed from a quarterback who has no business suiting up to a mediocre quarterback. But it was strictly on the strength of a busted defensive coverage so egregious that it put Hartline downfield where even Mr. Magoo sitting in the nosebleeds could have seen that there was nobody within shouting distance of him. In order words, my Aunt Matilda could have thrown that touchdown pass.

And we still have no safeties who can cover anybody.

Pray that it's because it's just the preseason with a new offensive coordinator and a shortened training camp.

 

Off the top of my head, I can think of him forcing throws into double and triple coverage in the Bengals, Ravens, Raiders, and Lions games, that all resulted in picks. That's a pretty decent stretch of games starting from about the middle of the season onward and it reared it's head again in the Atlanta game a few nights ago. I think it's a bigger problem than you're letting on. Just my opinon.

*Edit - Shoot, I'm a little trigger happy tonight. I meant to also add that I think his decision-making problems seem correctable, at least from my perspective anyway. However, I think it's concerning that in his 4th year, 3rd as a starter, he'd make that bad of a decision (with regard to the 2nd INT) and not move onto the next read, throw it away, tuck and run, etc. That's what's concerning to me.

 

You are only an 'excuse maker' in my eyes if you try to absolve Henne of ALL blame. Bess played a part, but so did Henne. Unfortunately Henne played a larger part because he could have minimized the mistake instead he maximized it.

EDIT: When you make a comment like the follwing in the thread about the Phins vs Falcons game, I don't think it's illogical for people to think you are trying to absolve Henne of all responsiblity on that 2nd INT

I don't think it's irrational for someone to interprett that as you trying to remove all responsibility of that INT. That may not be the case but I think it's a valid interpretation of your comment when put in context of the thread.

It's funny because if I suggest that the INT actually was Henne's fault, partially at a very minimum, I get put in the "hater" club. So it works both ways.

Personally I don't but much stock in Sparano's answers, because if it's a situation where you can tell from the play then Sprano's comments aren't needed in order to create an informed opinion. I just hope people watch the play and think for themselves instead of farming out their thinking to the authority ( Sparano ). In general, if the entirety of your argument is "because Sparano said so" then I am more than likely going to label weak reasoning and logic, not always but in general.

 

I definitely think the 2nd INT was Henne's fault - but I feel a bit better knowing that the WR ran the wrong route.

Obviously it is concerning that the route confused Henne into the pick - but it is better to know that than thinking it was just confusion over the coverage (which seemed to be an issue last year).

(I'm not absolving Henne from that pick - it was a TERRIBLE decision, but I am glad to know some background beyond Henne just misreading the coverage.)

 

Cant argue with that at all, Ronin. It is a head scratcher. It's actually such a head scratcher that I'm wondering if it's something we should just dismiss if that makes any sense.


In the Bengals game, he was trying to make a throw on 3rd on 10 after the running game ran for no yards and Cobbs dropped a beautiful deep pass on a wheel route. It was a bad decision, but I really can't fault him tremendously for trying to make a play there. During the Lions game, his decision making was good enough to get us 27 pts. If our defense held Detroit in the same way Chicago did twice, and the Jets, Packers, Vikes, Bucs, and Bills, we would've won the game. He didn't really make any poor decisions until he was put in a position to make up for a defensive melt down and our ground game's inability to close out a game...... not to mention having to do this in 30 mph winds.


Some of the other throws were bad (Raiders like you mentioned, Tenn I think had a terrible one). I guess for me I have to decide---- do I chalk it up to poor decision making ability, or do I attribute it to Henne being thrust into a role that he wasn't quite ready for. Knowing that he was facing different coverages etc during year 2 (along with the constant shuffling at Oline, WR, and TE) I'm temporary inclined to go with reason #2 until he proves other wise this season.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all my friend, b/c these are still areas to be concerned about or at least pay attention to.

At some point, I'd like to see us step up as a team and have more of a group effort so our QB isn't forced into as many high pressure situations that are more conducive to making mistakes at this point in his career.


Matt Ryan started 0-4 the other night. Then his ground game starts pounding it successfully. Then he gets a couple easy passes for decent gains..... and before you know it, they score a TD w/o Ryan doing much of anything during the drive. How often could we say that about Henne in 2010? Then all of a sudden Ryan can get into a rhythm, the 0-4 start is forgotten about, and he throws a nice TD, which IMO is much easier when there is less pressure on you and you have a balanced offense & strong defense helping you out.

 

respectfully, please go back and read my comment...... in the context of the post. Was I speaking about the play itself or was I speaking about the comment made? b/c they're entirely 2 different situations.

 

EDIT: It's not worth my time.

 

Uh-Huh, Coaches just like what JT brings to the table Deej, he is adept at getting into the starting lineup as he is picking up fumbles.

And Livas isn't practicing.

 

They are not going to say Deej, cannot imagine it was to serious as he had 1 return after the TD return and he looked fine.

 

Iowa's defense coordinator, Norm Parker, runs a very vanilla 4-3 defense with a lot of cover 2. He rarely called blitzes because he felt his front four could get pressure. I think that's the main reason why you didn't see Edds get to the quarterback much in college. I don't know if he can do it on a regular basis, but he never was given much opportunity to do so at Iowa.