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Chad Henne vs other starting QB's - 1st Pre Season Game

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by vt_dolfan, Aug 17, 2011.

  1. alen1

    alen1 New Member

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    I dunno, how aggressive can you be on a fade? If he doesn't hesitate on that throw, chances of completing it go up.
     
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  2. Fineas

    Fineas Club Member Luxury Box

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    I think a fade can be very aggressive, especially one thrown to a WR 16-17 yards past the LOS and between 2 defenders. A less charitable way of describing it might be "ill-advised," but I see it as an aggressive attempt to fit the ball into a small space 16 yards downfield. In fact, I think the hesitation was the cautious voice (of Dan Henning, maybe?) in his head telling him he shouldn't throw it at all and then he "reminded" himself to be aggressive and just throw it.
     
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  3. alen1

    alen1 New Member

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    Was that 16 yards deep? I thought it was shorter. I know it was in the sideline pocket b/c the cornerback was buzzing the flat whilst the safety was gaining leverage over the top but it didn't seem that deep. Could be wrong. Still a throw he should have done better with IMO.
     
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  4. Ophinerated

    Ophinerated Preposterous!

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    If what Sparano said was true, that the receiver ran the wrong route, then I think the hesitation was because the receiver wasn't where Henne expected him to be.
     
  5. alen1

    alen1 New Member

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    Is that what Sparano said? Did he say what route he was suppose to run by chance?
     
  6. Ophinerated

    Ophinerated Preposterous!

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    Not that I am aware of. I do know that he mentioned that the receiver did run the wrong route though. I don't remember what thread it was in, but there was a link to it.

    He didn't specify which receiver directly either... so it could have been someone other than Henne's target that was meant to draw in the DB? It wasn't clear cut.

    EDIT: I do want to clarify that this is not an excuse for Henne's decision to make that throw... because by no means should he have made that throw. I was just making an observation on the hesitation before the throw based on what was presented later.
     
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  7. mbmonk

    mbmonk I have no clue

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    If you wanted another QB besides Henne then you are a peasant apparently. Who is the "WE" up in the castle in this sentence BTW?

    I am of two minds on this article. 1st nobody is solely looking at the first preseason game ( it's put in context for the vast majority of starting QB's with their past history ) so I think it's a bit off the mark in that respect. That being said there has been only a couple of practices for all the players not just the QB in this new system.. I am not going to draw any firm conclusions from the game in terms of the passing game based on it. I am taking a wait and see approach on that front.
     
  8. alen1

    alen1 New Member

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    If he meant Bess, I'm guessing Bess was suppose to run a Post. Its the only thing that makes sense to me based off of the design.
     
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  9. rafael

    rafael Well-Known Member

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    Henne's interception was b/c he was being aggressive and pushing the ball down field. The difference is that too many can't be objective about Henne.
     
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  10. alen1

    alen1 New Member

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    Thought he played pretty well honestly.
     
  11. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    To me, and one of the reasons why I have not tossed him overboard, is he is at that "Good Henne/Bad Henne" stage of development, the strike to Hartline was good Henne, confident, looked like a NFL Qb, and he showed off an improved play action fake, the 2nd Int was bad Henne, hesitant, not believing what he is seeing on the sidelines (which is where he usually tosses his int's), wrong side of the 50 yd line to make that throw.

    Good Henne, I think is what we will see this yr, that is my hope, I think Daboll is that good of a Qb Coach.
     
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  12. NJFINSFAN1

    NJFINSFAN1 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    Sparano said the WR ran the wrong route, But Henne took the blame and said he should not have thrown it.
     
  13. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    Henne didn't take the blame out of some sense of charity or altruism, Sparano made himself clear in his explanation when he said "two wrongs make a wrong."
     
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  14. smahtaz

    smahtaz Pimpin Ain't Easy

    Yet no one has mentioned Henne reading over the top when Hartline broke off his 1st route with single coverage and no safety help. When they ran the same play to the other side of the field later in the game it was a TD. That was 3 shots over 15 yards in 8 attempts. It was the same with Moore. I think it was around 8 shots downfield in 18 attempts.

    As far as I can tell so far, each route has multiple options and both the QB and receiver have to be on the same page regarding the read. If they can somehow get on the same page by opening day, I don't think we will recognize this offense this year.
     
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  15. CaribPhin

    CaribPhin Guest

    How bout we all just take a big old Sabbatical and not talk about this.
     
  16. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    Gonna have to agree with rafael on this one about Locker's game.

    The best thing you can say is that he really never panicked. I mean, crap was flying at him and going wrong all over the place and when the world was raining sh-t, he sh-t rainbows.

    I had a different read on that 3rd throw of his. I don't think he pump faked in order to clear the DB. I think he wound up and wanted to throw that ball but sensed the linebacker coming in and pulled it down, stepped up, and re-cocked to the same guy he wanted to go to the first time. And it was a good thing for that pressure because the timing of it was bad for the first go-around, the player wasn't really clear yet but I'm pretty sure Jake wanted to throw it.

    Then on a 3rd & 12, he gets fooled by a defense showing blitz then pulling back. For him, panic + confusion = pull the ball down and run. That's what he did, even though he wasn't under any pocket duress.

    He throws a ball over the middle to Jared Cook way too high. Luckily Cook is one hell of an athlete and can jump a mile and a half, because the safety was scraping right behind him following the ball and would have picked it off.

    Then you have a change of play Locker made at the line, he sits back on the 3 step drop and freezes his feet while he gets bowled over by Christian Ballard. Immediate pressure up the middle sucks but you have to do SOMETHING there, at least try and get away. He didn't sense the pressure because he was too focused down the field. In similar situations I've seen Mallett sense the pressure while he's dropping and improvise by not setting up on his drop.

    The long touchdown off the half-roll, I'm about 90% certain that half-roll wasn't built into the play. That was just Locker's way of improvising. He cuts out and looks for something deep. Did that a lot at Washington, just didn't always find someone. Again though the accidental nature of his success is amusing. He fumbled the snap exchange which is why he panicked and rolled out of the pocket in the first place. The poor corner back covering Yamon Figurs on the play, he saw the shenanigans in the backfield with the fumbled snap and just got caught be aggressive and trying to keep a lid on what from his vantage looked like it might be shaping up to a run play. Figurs streaked immediately and looked back for the ball, saw what was going on and purposely pulled up so as not to outrun Locker's arm, held his hand up calling for the ball, and Locker just heaved it as far as he could (about 55-60 yards thru the air by the looks of it).

    It's hard to really take things from that play for two reasons:

    1. The result was set up by failure in execution rather than success in execution. It was serendipitously set up by a sloppy mistake, the kind that you hope to eliminate as you go on teaching him and installing the offense around him.

    2. The level of difficulty on the throw was easy because Figurs was wide open and was sitting at Locker's maximum range. Locker didn't have to hit him in stride or worry about over-throwing him, and he didn't have to put any touch on the ball. He just had to get it out and Figurs was already in position to do the rest. Very low difficulty rating on the throw.

    Will the offense produce moments similar to that? I don't think so. I think what happened with the Dolphins and Chad Henne throwing deep to a wide open Hartline is a situation that projects better because it was created by successful execution, and it was really not that easy of a throw. Henne could have made it an easier throw by underthrowing it, playing it safe, but he didn't. That play could happen again. And for all our sake, I hope it does happen again...a lot. But this play with Locker...it's not something that I'm comfortable saying happens again.

    The next roll-out, that was an intentional roll-out. But, and maybe this is nit picky because by all means it was a nice accurate throw on the run, I thought he held onto the ball two beats too late. As a result, #25 was able to catch up and get in on the catch, and might have broken the play up. I'm pretty sure Stevens was the first read in his progression as it seemed the two receivers were running verts just to clear everyone out and then Locker's reads were 1-2 on the TE and RB flowing out in front of Jake. So Craig was his first read as soon as Jake got his head around and he was wiiiide open right from the get go, but Jake continued taking about 3 or 4 more steps before he threw. He's a rookie, but he's got to get that hesitation ironed out of him or it'll plague his career the way it's plagued Henne's.

    The fade throw was a chemistry issue to me, off timing between the QB and WR, Locker not necessarily knowing where Hawkins wants that ball and Hawkins losing it in the lights a little bit. Hawkins is a speedster, he wants to run under the ball not fight for the underthrow.

    Next play I didn't like throw. Bailed by the pass interference flag but he threw it uncatchable. Almost as if he tried to learn on the fly from his having slightly underthrown the ball to Hawkins on basically the same route, and so he really, really, really overthrows Mariani on the same route.

    Into the new half he throws again on the roll and this time it was very inaccurate, wide and turfed.

    Overall accuracy to me was about 60% catchable balls on non-screens which to me is a slight improvement on what I saw in college, but you need it up around 70-75% to be a top QB in this league, IMO.

    Incidentally people laughed when I said that Reggie Bush doesn't bring much, if any, more to the game than a Lorenzo Booker. Well, Booker played all through the front half of this game and he basically affirmed my thoughts there. Reggie Bush doesn't bring much, if any, more to the table than Lorenzo does. Those kinds of players are really not as rare as you think. They get sh-t on in the Draft and by most teams because of their obvious deficiencies in running between the tackles. Reggie never demonstrated that he's above that deficiency, he simply was given a shortcut by means of draft position.
     
  17. MrClean

    MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member

    How about he took the blame because he seriously felt he deserved the blame? Would that be too simple an explanation?
     
  18. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    I don't see how what you're saying is appropriate. NJ seemed to imply that even though it was Davone's fault, Henne played the good soldier and took the blame. I was pointing out exactly what you just got done saying. He didn't take the blame out of some sense of altruism or chivalry, he took the blame because he really deserved blame on that throw.

    I don't get why you have to read every little thing I say about Henne as something to be argued about. It's reaching a crisis stage when you think you're arguing against me by identically reiterating what I just said.
     
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  19. Killerphins

    Killerphins The Finger

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    Devil's advocated the ball should have been thrown away if in fact it was a blown route....
    It was an ill advised pass. Db made a great play......
     
  20. jdang307

    jdang307 Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Lorenzo Booker's still in the league? Wow
     
  21. ToddsPhins

    ToddsPhins Banned

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    Personally, I don't think Hoyer looked nearly as good as his stat line suggests.
     
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  22. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    Right away I'm looking at Christian Ponder, and it's nice to see these guys go head to head to see where they differ. Very first throw he's on the roll and what immediately jumps out is the lack of hesitation. Remember on that other roll, Jake kept pushing it and taking more steps until he finally released the ball and as a result the DB was able to get in on the play though Stevens managed to haul in the physically contested catch anyway. First place Ponder pops the head around quickly, excellent play fake by the way, he showed the ball and he had crisp movements with it...but most of all he gets the ball out to his read without hesitation which allowed for a full 10 yards of RAC. That's playing smarter, not harder.

    Next play I like the call here with the 1 step drop. To me, 1 step drops are murder when it comes to execution. If you can execute them, god bless, because it WILL hurt a defense, but it's such a low percentage play to me and right here we see why. The chemistry has to be so exact. Yet, I like that they tried it with Christian because he's a smart, savvy guy and that's got to be one of the things in the arsenal to get defenses thinking, so that it'll open up other things. In short, it's a high difficulty rating play, but one that has to be in a Christian Ponder's tool box if he wants to succeed.

    3rd & 5 and I don't like this from Christian. Head spinning. He didn't need to give up on the play quite so soon. Prior to the play he had to correct Lorenzo Booker on which side to line up. But then he ignored Lorenzo as he leaked out into wide open space after he gave a DE a marginal chip on the shoulder. Did Ponder think Booker was supposed to stay in and block on the play? It's possible. Otherwise, why make sure to place the guy on the side of open space and then never even look at him?

    I never usually give any quarterbacks a break on a sack, but on this next sack by Ponder he did pretty much get it from his blind side from a DT that looped wide of his blocker, as soon as he got done setting up. Nobody was open yet and it seemed like a blind side attack. That's tough. If it was front side I'd blame him for not improvising.

    Next play he's a little rattled from that last pressure you can tell. This time he doesn't wait for that same guy who has the mismatch (#69, Zach Clayton) to kill him again on 3rd & 16, he starts scrambling when he didn't like his immediate options on the throw. I don't like bailing on the play but this is 3rd & 16 and I think he knows that no play set up from the pocket an executed in a timely fashion is going to convert you 3rd & 16, unless there's a coverage breakdown or unless the pocket holds an absurdly long time which he just found out on the last play isn't going to happen. He shows you his potential because he bails left, runs into a wall of defenders, cuts on a dime and loops back around to the right and then releases the ball accurately at a dead run for a conversion on 3rd & 16. That's pretty damn savvy for a rookie. I don't care that Brandon Fusco got a personal foul that wiped the play off the books, I don't pay attention to that any more than I do a bad P.I. call bailing Locker out of a bad throw. This was a heck of a play by Ponder. He throws a great ball on the run, about as good as I've seen.

    Now, 3rd & 26, you're not converting this...but at the same time, what the heck was THAT throw on the slant? Low and behind the guy. It's supposed to be a high percentage throw that doesn't have a lick of a percentage chance of converting, but he made it low percentage. Confusing.

    Another roll-out but this is a great, aggressive throw. Throwing on the run is such a strong suit for him, throws a really great, accurate ball on the run. It was something Richard expounded upon nicely in his piece we did for Hyde. Everything about this play is top notch from the execution of the fake to his getting his head around right away, his getting his shoulders squared, the timing, fitting the ball between defenders, and the fact that he stuck with the more aggressive route 12 yards beyond the line of scrimmage rather than the shorter option, or the option to try and run the ball out of bounds. He wasn't scared to get this ball off, very decisive. A lot of other guys might not have liked that look at such a dead run. It wasn't wide open. The confidence was good.

    Now he's really settling in and reading the defense, applying what he's learned. He sees all that open grass on the left side and there was no hesitation in taking advantage of it. Gets the ball out of his hands immediately with great placement so that the receiver can catch in stride and turn it up the field, and as a result of that execution the play went for big yardage.

    Here's a mistake Ryan Mallett made that Christian Ponder did not. When the clock was running out and it became apparent that he hadn't gotten everyone lined up quickly enough to execute before the clock could run, he popped up and burned that timeout rather than take the penalty. I give good marks for that, if it's a true rookie. If not, I give negative marks for not having your people lined up in time in the first place. But for a rookie, to have the awareness to not let the mistake turn into a flag, that's good.

    Yet another roll-out. Something I was saying on Twitter was I hope the Vikings are holding a lot back in preseason because there's something really monotonous and predictable about this offense. The defense seems to instinctively know whether it's run or pass, and flow to the ball accordingly. The deep shots seemed unimaginative. Now there's a lot of repetition with these rolls that Ponder is getting called. But again I love the decisiveness here. He's got two options and both are well covered because the first option never quite made it out of the briar patch with good timing, got bumped around too much, and where you might see other guys continue to stride toward the sidelines, Ponder is decisive and cuts immediately up the field when his two options are exhausted. If he'd have had the daylight instincts to cut it further back to the left to where he had a mess of OLs forming a wall with nary a Titan in sight, he might have busted out a huge run with this level of decisiveness.

    Next play is wiped out by an offensive procedure penalty but I liked the decision to hit the comeback on the right side. It was the best availability and the ball had good pace. But the corner had really tight coverage on it, so he was able to contest the catch and break it up.

    You have to love a quarterback that can execute screens. I'm not sure Mallett ever will. Gabbert will never execute screens as well as Ponder. Newton might. There's just such a benefit to a guy that is athletic and has body control, he can sell his fakes and execute screens, and lobbing the ball comes natural to him. You have a screen on 3rd & 11 and the execution was almost good enough to convert (missed by a yard). Of course not all of that is on the QB, not even most of it...but he does a good job in the screen game. There was an earlier screen by Locker that was flat out ugly compared with this one.

    Curious play call. You have 4th & 1, it's preseason, so why not see what the kid can do with some pressure on him? Instead of whipping out their best 4th & 1 play, they put him in shotgun with three wide, all five out on routes. Tennessee does a good job crowding the short routes while simultaneously pressuring Ponder. This is not the play I would call on 4th & 1, certainly. But Ponder scrambles away from the pressure to buy enough time to find an open guy, and find him he does. Ball is dropped, hit him right on the hands around his waist. Too bad. Ewww, it was Allen Reisner...and I kinda liked him too!

    Tried another 1 step drop. Told ya, it's a low percentage play. People think of it as high percentage just because it's quick and it's always a slant. It's TOO quick. In this case I thought Ponder was a little lax on the timing of it, maybe because his aim ended up off on the first one which was run with nice, hot pace...but this one a little slow and the DT got his hands up to bat it down because of it.

    Couldn't really tell if Ponder checked down unnecessarily or not. One of the guys in the booth says so, says Andre Holmes was open, the corner came off him. But I don't trust the guys in the booth, especially that guy in particular, to have seen that the corner didn't come off because Ponder had already started executing the checkdown. That same guy in the booth is the one that went on a whole rambling monologue about how when Lorenzo Booker was at FSU last year, he liked him and he made plays, played like a big guy, not really a big guy but plays big, etc. It was straight, hot garbage this guy was spouting off. Unless I can see a wider camera view that showed a player open, I'm not going to criticize the checkdown, which had good timing and accuracy.

    This OL is killing Ponder. On 3rd & 9 he's got a DT screaming at him off a spin move that left the RG grasping at air. He had to duck the DT and start scrambling, had no choice. It was a 4 man rush, he hadn't even had time yet to let the routes develop, and he had no reason to go hot because as I said, 4 man rush. But MAN did he make a nice play! Scrambles one way then the other, is heading toward the sidelines and you're wondering how he can throw a ball with his right hand while running straight toward the left sideline, so he figured that one out for you. He shovel passed the ball like 12 yards thru the air to an outlet who goes on to gain about 7 or 8 of the 9 yards he'd have needed for a 1st down.

    Then on 4th & 2, he makes a mistake here. Myron Rolle (his friend, fellow smart guy, former teammate) fooled him nicely by disguising his safety blitz, and he came screaming at Ponder while he wasn't looking/expecting. But you gotta love Ponder's toughness. He absorbs the hit from Rolle and stays on his feet, twirls to his right and fires the ball with Rolle dragging him down. Throw was all arm, but it still went like 30-35 yards thru the air and found a guy in single coverage that had a fighting chance for the ball. Christian threw the ball up to try and give his guy a chance because a sack ends the game. Only problem is Ponder threw it too hard and it went out the back of the end zone. Was a valiant effort.

    Overall, I liked Ponder's performance more than Locker's. I might have even liked it more than Mallett's, hard to say at this point.

    I'd say the performances I watched thus far were:

    1. Mallett
    2. Ponder
    3. Locker
    4. Gabbert

    Haven't seen Newton yet.
     
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  23. ToddsPhins

    ToddsPhins Banned

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    He played pretty darn well, too, if my memory serves me right.
     
  24. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    No, he wasn't. He was firing the ball off target, especially on that "touchdown". He made some questionable decisions too. But, he's got enough arm and he showed that he can let that offense work for him. I felt Mallett tried to do more heavy lifting on behalf of the offense, while Hoyer let the offense do the heavy lifting for him.
     
  25. ToddsPhins

    ToddsPhins Banned

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    I thought Gabbert played better than he was given credit for. NE definitely did not make it easy for him his first time out.
     
  26. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    Lorenzo Booker had 9 runs for 47 yards and 3 catches for 32 yards.

    I'm telling you, if a team gave him the same chance that they'd be inclined to give a Reggie Bush, they'd find that they got almost the same production. I mostly find people scoff at the idea without actually demonstrating why it's wrong. Just watch the two players play the game. See what they both do in space catching passes, and running the ball between the tackles. Booker has most of the same strengths and the same weaknesses.
     
  27. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    Gabbert did well. He had some issues with his transition to a dropback offense, to be expected. But Mallett, Ponder and Locker all did better this weekend. Not sure about Newton or Kaepernick. From what I've heard they might both be behind Gabbert...or maybe Newton might have snuck in ahead of him.
     
  28. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    Padre (I think. Or maybe you, lol.) put up some stat showing Henne's average QBR for games 1, 2, 3 of the pre-season and he historically has VERY strong second games. So he'll probably look like a HoF'er on Friday, if the trend holds.
     
  29. ToddsPhins

    ToddsPhins Banned

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    I agree with that. Good thing for Hoyer is---- with that team, he can play that role and win games.

    Our boy Price is looking good (surprised he got up after that hit)...... and is it me or does Mallet look quite a bit thicker?..... there was some mustard on the deep square in to Price.
     
  30. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box


    Honestly, what means the most to me is seeing him do the things he couldn;t do well before. I assume he can still beat the blitz, and throw laser-fast outs, etc.

    In pre-season ALL I care about is seeing him practicing his weaknesses and showing IMPROVEMENT in those areas.

    He already did that with his footwork, and evasiveness in the Falcons game.

    Here are weaknesses of his I want Daboll/Dorrell dialling up for Henne to practice in this game:
    - Ball placement is still an issue, it seems, and doesn;t thrill me (got tired of seeing slants placed too far behind receivers last year). So I'd love to see him more consistently place the ball ideally. He CAN do it, but he inconsistent.
    - He needs to show he can read mixed man/zone right off the snap and then pull the trigger decisively at the last step of his drop and fire the ball... no holding, patting or double-pumping as he seems hesitant to trust what he sees.
    - Seam passes. Intermediate seam passes between the LB and Safety levels, mid-field.


    I was tempted to include touch passes (dropping ball into a bucket, i.e. arcing the ball with touch into holes in zone coverage, or on fade routes) but I honestly saw improvement on that LAST year from Henne and he seems to still be improving. Yes, more practice could help, but I don't think that's as big a weakness now as the three things I listed above.

    So I don;t expect him to have a great QBR in the preseason. Fact is, he should be working on his weaknesses.
     
  31. ToddsPhins

    ToddsPhins Banned

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    Newton was inconsistent; you can tell he's not used to the speed & I think it surprised him possibly more than he anticipated.
    Had once very nice throw down field (wasn't pretty, but it was where it needed to be). Didn't use his feet any, which I'd probably look at as a positive right now.
    IMO you can tell he's definitely a work in progress. I'd give the edge to Gabbert after 1 game, but I'm only basing that on Newton looking extremely raw and Gabbert playing against a NE defense that seemed to treat this game like week 1 of the regular season.

    Picking up Olsen was a great f'n move for Cam.
     
  32. ToddsPhins

    ToddsPhins Banned

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    I haven't seen Kaepy either. Completely forgot I didn't watch the Niner game.
     
  33. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    I think the hesitation was uncertainty about the coverage. henne looks, makes his read, then doesn;t trust it. He;s been mistaken (with bad results) enough times over the last two years that now he doesn;t have that swagger-like trust in his instincts. He THINKS about it too much.
     
  34. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    Agree he should have released it earlier. I think what spooked him was the thought an LB could have drifted back there (hidden by the OL) and appeared for a "Rob Ninkovich" style INT. Either that or he was uncertain if the CB was in Man or Zone so hesitated.
     
  35. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    Well, the two possibilities I saw on re-watching the play were that Bess was supposed to run an in at 12-15 yards but didn't, which would explain the double clutch... or that Thomas (the RB) was supposed to get out into the flats sooner to hold the CB there. But Thomas got caught up in traffic and the CB was free to leave his flat zone to the sideline and float back to the ball, reading Henne's locked-on stare.
     
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  36. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    I don;t want to see Henne be decisive and confident only on totally busted coverages. He has to be able to read a coverage and know the weak spot against THAT type of coverage then attack it, decisively, even when all the DBs are where they are supposed to be. Because 99% of the time that's what he'll be looking at against decent or good teams.
     
  37. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box


    Two great points here:

    1) There seem to be noticeable option routes here. Hartline and Henne's early miscommunication seemed to be one of them.

    2) Credit to Henne and Hartline ironing it out and then connecting on another possibly option route. I still think it was a screwed up coverage assignment by the secondary, though.
     
  38. MrClean

    MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member

    Ok, sorry, I was under the impression you meant he took the blame because after Sparano's statement, he had no choice.

    I do not consider all your opinions on Henne to be arguable. I agree with you on many things regarding him and the rest of the team for that matter.
     
  39. MrClean

    MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member

    Even though only 2 are still Dolphins, 7 out of 10 players drafted by Cameron and Mueller are still in the league. Reagan Mauia could well be the starting FB for the Cards.
     
  40. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    Nov 24, 2007
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    I know it may be off topic, but since you brought up rookie quarterbacks...

    I got to watch Minnesota and Tennessee yesterday on AFN and I was really eager to see Christian Ponder play. Minnesota elected to take Ponder over Mallett, and I personally thought that Mallet was the best QB choice in the draft, but anyway...I was THOROUGHLY impressed with Ponder. Granted, I know that by the time he got in the game midway through the 3rd quarter, he was playing against 2nd and 3rd stringers, but the thing that really impressed me was his decision making.

    We've seen too many times rookie quarterbacks pause a little too long, or hesitate, or stutter step. Ponder was ON IT!! When he planted and stepped up into the pocket, he delivered...when he rolled out right, he found his receiver and delivered...no hesitancy, no uncertainty, no stutter stepping. I thought he was incredible.

    To coin John Madden, this kid is going to be something really special!
     

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