I LOVED what I saw last night from Henne, and maybe just maybe we HAVE found our QB of the future. With an OLine and a better running game he could be able to lead this team to a lot of success. To me what is holding him back is Sparano & Ireland. Get a better coach & GM, and I think this team will SOAR !
They sacrificed a lot in the running game to make the passing game better. Its really just a re-arrangment, but I'm not sure its any more effective of an offense than last year at this point. It certainly can be though.
Last night I think we saw the 2009 Henne and even better. Now, consistency will be the key. If he can keep that TD/INT ratio on the good side of 1 all season, we can be confident with him going forward.
Again, another good point Stringer. Right now, all we've done is flip flopped our strategy. We're no longer a running football team. Running the ball is secondary. So, people shouldn't expect big total yardage number from the RB's. However, the 3.5 ypc or whatever it was from the RB's needs to improve. Is it more effective? I dunno. We're finding out.
I will take the 400 yards of passing and 70 yards of rushing from our QB than the occasional 100 yard game we got from Brown and Williams any day of the week.
I would to, but the style of play is going to put a lot of pressure on the defense. You cant control the ball or the clock.
They did fine with the first possesion, eating up half of the quarter. I think they got caught up a little bit in playing the Patriots pace of football. But the bigger issue remains in that, this team, with Henne, can be a good offense. Maybe not great, but really good. If they can slow it down some, like the first drive...they will be fine.
Yea, we need to be a lot closer to 40% on third down if we want more success (similar can be said for red zone scoring). We also need to stop getting drive killing penalties which put us beind in the down and distance, and we need to have less drives starting behind our 20.
In a passing league, it's clearly more important to be be able to pass. And I don't agree that they've just switched things around. The plan is to still have a power running game with DT. The problem with the run game is the OL. We didn't sacrifice anything there for the sake of the passing game.
Those are my sentiments. Nearly 500 yards of offense and 24 points is nothing like "switching things around". 488 offensive yards is currently good for #2 in the NFL.
The goal line play + the Soliai FB move was what solidified it for me. As we all suspected the line is once again a concern, if not THE concern. I didn't see much from Pouncey, but Incognito and Carey had rough nights from what I saw.
we just had to play these 2 monsters in haynesworth and wilfork last night, i still believe we can run the ball, if we keep spreading them out, running will start to work
It looked like Soliai didnt have a path to really block in and stopped while Reggie just ran into his back. Id much rather take my chances with Lex. Does the coaching staff all of a sudden have a vendetta against Lex? He got the 4 & 1, why not give him at shot to gain 6 inches?
I agree completely. Henne has to be consistantly very good...like he was last night. Its what builds his confidence level...when you are used to being that good all the time....it just comes natural at some point. Going back into Preseason....I know preseason....but hes put together what...3 or 4 in a row where we have seen play at a high level?
He played well. We're not there yet. 100+ yards after garbage time. But he had a good game. 2/24 or 3/14 on 3rd down conversions? Two first and goals on the two and 3 points? NE 30th ranked Pass D last year? We have a long ways to go. But a year of this, and Henne is a good QB.
488 yds in 53 plays. 2/14 on 3rd downs. Thats not how you want to play offense against Tom Brady. The offense absolutely had to do a better job staying on the field. You're trading potential yards for ball control.
How many of those 3rd downs were 3rd and long thanks to Oline penalties?... and how many sacks or heavy pressures during those 3rd downs? That can't be ignored.
There were at least 3 3rd down and manageables (5yds and under) to my recollection where we came up a yd short. Definitely sucked a bit. Especially the almost TD to Bess.
3rd and 4 - 3yd completion to Bush (we converted 4th an 1) 3rd and 9 - 9yd TD run by Henne 3rd and 4 - 3yd run by Bush 3rd and 3 - Henne for 16 yds to Hartline 3rd and 2 - Bush run for no gain 3rd and 9 - (from our own 5) Incomplete to Wallace (I believe there was a hit on QB that messed this throw up) 3rd and 23 - (resulting from Incognito hold on 1st down) 11 yd pass to Bush 3rd and 2 - (from the 2) incomplete to Marshall (I thought it should've been caught, but FG from Carpenter was the result) 3rd and 4 - Incomplete to Hartline (not an easy grab, but I though Brian should've had it) 3rd and 5 - Sack. Henne got killed thanks to Richie and Vernon on the play. 3rd and 10 - incomplete to Marshall 4th and 10 - Hartline for 15 3rd and 7 - 6 yds to Bess 4th and 1 - Incomplete to Hartline in the EZ 3rd and 7 - Incomplete to Bess 4th and 7 - 9 yd pass to Bush 3rd and 16 - 11 yd run by Henne 4th and 5 - 10 yds to Marshall. Ignoring the 4th downs for now, I felt only 5 of the 3rd downs were outright unfavorable (9-though we scored,9,23,10 and 16). Two 3rd and 7s aren't good situations but they aren't a killer. So there was six different 3rd and 5s (or less) that were failed conversions and all were manageable for sure.
It doesn't really matter, either way the offense didn't say on the field, which put the defense in a bad spot.
It seemed like they got away from doing what they did in the first drive and didn't get back to it in the first half. No facts to give, just how I perceived things. I loved Henne's toughness. He took a BIG shot to the ribs early in the game and he did not show any ill effects.
I dont think its a matter of the light coming on as much as its a matter of the senile senior citizen calling plays is gone. It's amazing what happens when you put trust and faith into your QB, and let him trust his judgement on the field with what he's seeing from the defense and allow him to alter plays as he sees fit depending on the look the D is giving him. He's always had the ability, we just needed a system that fits him, that makes him comfortable, and we needed to put the trust in him to change the play if necessary. It's only one game, but you can see the change. It's obviously for the better. I don't doubt he's still going to have the odd game where he struggles a bit, but I dont think itll be anything like last year. For the first time in Henne's time here, I finally saw the QB that I watched for 4 years at Michigan.
Hey.... It's the FIRST game.... against a team that cannot be considered a WEAK TEAM, but one that has gotten somewhat better in run defense with the combination of Wilfork and Haynesworth in the middle. How happy would anyone on this board have been to seen anything remotely resembling the type of game played by Henne last year replayed in this game? You have to ask yourself... Has he improved? Well, has he......? Do you feel lucky? Or are we going to wallow in the mire some more with concern, anxiety, hand wringing and spending time playing with our worry warts? When was the last time we have seen a QB throw for more than 400 yards AND run for almost 60 more? Huh....?? Huh???? Come on!!!!! Ya wanna worry.... Worry about where the Defense went? THAT has me much more worried today!!!
Good memory! If I started him I would have won. I started Freeman though. I may start him against Houston's Defense.
to me it looked like henne had more freedom to change plays and i think it changed things a lot from last year. wish he made a couple better passes to marshall
Killjoy !! hehehe Seriously, it's not a re-arrangement. It's a completely different offense geared at spreading out the D to allow for both running lanes and passing opportunities. It is a more QB friendly system than what we ran before. The problem is that even with the increased passing opportunities, you have to open up some kind of holes for your RBs for this system to be effective. If you don't, eventually it will lead to more mistakes by the QB and WRs because of the pressure D's will put on them and then you're in trouble all over again....Bottom line, we need the OL to be much better than they were. Not only were there no running lanes, there was a lot of pressure on Henne all night long....
My main beef w/Henne was that he had the bad habit of locking onto his primary target. Plus he reeked of lack of confidence. But we all know that was a direct result of bad coaching. Many of us questioned if he really had the "it" factor. If he has similar success against the better, more aggressive attacking defenses, we'll have our answer. Just remember how the three stooges introduced him to the league. 1st down Qb hand the ball off, 2nd down wildcat and 3rd down qb is supposed to bail team out. They wanted him to be perfect all the time despite the margin for error being extremely low. And on top of that how about being nearly brow beaten to death with 'don't mess up Chad,' 'don't mess up Chad,' 'don't mess up Chad,' 'don't mess up Chad.' But what's really gonna piss fans off is this. What if the idiots didn't try to turn the clock back in '08 and went with the program in adjusting to a passing league. Where would Henne be in 2011 had he been properly taught? How much more advanced would his game be in terms of his progressions, looking off/manipulating defenders? How much slower would the speed of the game be for him now? Some boast that the idiots are the ones who drafted Henne. Yeah? Problem is they drafted him to be a "game manager." That's like purchasing a brand new Lambo and stubbornly only driving on local streets and never on highways. People like to say we can't change this/that, can't cut a certain player it'll set the team back. Well, this is another example of this regime either making moves or refusing to make moves that resulted in setting the team back.
Probably, but even a new regime picking top 10 and picking a QB, will keep Henne at least for 2012, and its possible for 2013 as well. The contract is an interesting deal with Henne, they have to re-sign him this year right ?
His development is what I was referring to. Dan Henning should have been GONE after year 2. The decision to keep him was bad judgement, and delayed Henne's development. That is on Sparano & Ireland.
Let's see what happens over the next 6 or 7 weeks, a decent sample size under this enw offense. If he throws 3 INTS next week it won't necessarily mean that he sucks or that he hasn't improved. There will be good games and bad games, but we need to see some consistency emerge over several weeks