Only problem with that is that a zero can't be negative. I think a lot of credit has to go to the Atlanta Falcons coaching staff in Matt Ryan's early success. Ryan has a lot of talent and I will admit that I thought he would be a bust (which I was wrong about) but they have made gameplans to play up to Ryan's strengths, much like Shanahan does in Denver with Jay Cutler. Ryan's early success is great for the league because the Falcons, a team in disarray only months ago, is headed in the right direction, much like this team. That said, if Ryan does indeed go and have a Hall of Fame career or a successful career, the Dolphins management will have no reason to kick themselves. We can't see in the future and at the time, the selection of Jake Long was the best one and IMO, it still is. This team needed a franchise Tackle and a cornerstone, and we got that. If this teams selection of Chad Henne fails to pan out (God forbid), the decision was still the correct one because you win games in the trenches and that is what we needed. A Quarterback is great but when you can't protect him, he will be average. Fortunately for Ryan in Atlanta, Sam Baker and the rest of the offensive line have done a good job of giving Ryan time.
Atlanta has one of the softest schedules this season. Chicago was the only team worth a crap they've played. The rest of their season is fairly soft as well. Granted he's looking good for them and fits their air it out and pray for rain style passing game they had with Vick, but Ryan has more touch and accuracy that Vick didn't to make it work. Plus their recievers are actually catching the ball for once and a solid run game is taking a lot of pressure off of him. It was a very good fit for him in Atlanta, however I just don't see him working in Miami. I am very pleased that we got Long and have Henne in the same draft. You can't deny that there will be an extra amount of confidence and familiarness with the tendancies of each other after 4 years together. If a QB can trust a man to watch his blindside and have the confidence to know he's got your back, that's something special. Wouldn't trade what we have for Ryan now or later.
I guess that is the choice that was made for us. We don't know what Henne can do, but lets remember that Ryan is still in his rookie year. You can't judge him just yet. Besides, Tunaland and co. weren't looking for that one star and our OL minus Long might not be able to protect a young QB. Also, we can't forget the fact that CP happen to fall into our laps.. I believe they had Henne pegged to be our starter somewhere during this year anyway. That changed with Penny...
At the time we definitely made the right choice. We needed a LT badly. The fact that we didn't acquire one the year before I think hurt Beck's development. Also we had been through the QB carousel for some time. We needed stability. Every year we were bringing in a new QB "savior" and they were failing because they didn't have the tools to succeed here. Parcells went back to basics. He rebuilt our offensive line, a much needed and delayed overhaul. He also got us a great QB prospect in Henne. Jake Long was definitely the best pick for us. Matt Ryan would have been eaten alive by the fans needs and expectations. As a first overall QB pick here he couldn't break wind without someone calling him a bum and bemoaning the wasted first round choice. Jake Long and Chad Henne are going to do this franchise proud. I'm happy with the choice we made.
I just can't shake Henne's bad games and inabilities against Ohio State from my memories. Ryan's been doing everything you and I thought he'd do. Make plays and throw pretty accurately.
Impressive, yes. Elite? Let's not get carried away. We can't let our utter lack of QB talent over the past 10 years pervert our concept of an Elite QB. Right now, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are THE only Elite QBs in this league right now. Everyone else is good to very good, if they're worth mentioning at all. Ryan's much, much better than I thought he'd be at this level, and I'll eat my crow, but you're getting way ahead of yourself with crowning him Elite, even if it's "in the making". Way, way too early to tell.
No! They're are finally building things the right way, with the foundation first, with the trenches. It's the whole ripple effect if we took Ryan. There weren't many franchise type tackles available later in the draft, which we desperately needed. Look at the time our QBs used to have regardless of who the QB was. Ryan would not have been able to do anything with the OL we used to have. I always liked him and thought that he would turn out to be a good QB, but it just wasn't the right move for us at the time. Obviously, if Henne turns out to be the real deal than we definitely did the right thing. Only time will tell. It's too early yet, but you can't deny that we are much improved and appear to be headed in the right direction. Finally!
My biggest gripeS with Henne in college, was his pocket presence, and his streaky accuracy. I havent seen any of that during the preseason . I think Henne had one gm in preseason where he had some poor pocket presence (gm 2 or 3) and his accuracy has been fine. Just from the preseason games and his little playing time against Arizona, he looks like the real deal. I still want to see him start a game or two but from the little Ive seen he looks like he may be a better pro than college QB. He still stares down his receivers a bit but I think he could be the real deal and finally give us a real QB with a real arm. Hopefully he's smart because I think that will determine how good he becomes
No debating that Ryan's been successful so far, and has looked good doing it. However, I'm not ready to annoint him as a "success" let alone as "elite" on the basis of 6 games, not all of which were impressive. While he was successful airing it out against the Bears whose DBs are far from "elite," to me a more enduring test would be whether a Roddy White or Turner go down and Ryan needs to air it out more frequently. Don't forget that in his senior year at BC, after the first game (was it WF?? I forget) where he was "lights out", for the rest of the season he only threw a handful more TDs than INTs. So IMO it's way too premature to label him anything other than a work in progress until he can prove over a more convincing body of work and adverse circumstances that his decision making has improved since college. Either way, we ended up with Jake, so it's a matter of big wins by degrees. In that vein, I think there's more to bellyache about when we could have taken Willis in lieu of Teddy.
Poor pocket presence and staring down receivers are the #1A and 1B killers of young QB's. Just didn't think he was worth a 2nd and really the weak crop of QB's helped his stock. When our OL doesn't dominate the way the Michigan OL did when he played well, I don't know if I can take snuff films.
well you gotta admit he's looked better here than in Michigan. every now and then QBs come out of college and play much better than they did in college
Well, it's hard to judge just by one game in garbage time and preseason (Ricky Williams looked like a stud in preseason but hasn't since after all) but he looked ok. We've succeeded because Pennington has made good decisions under pressure, getting the ball out quick, etc. That's not really what Henne is known for. I just fear Henne turning into the next Brad Johnson. Good thrower if you give him weapons (Keyshawn, McCardell) and a superb OL but goes to the wolves when he has ok supporting crew.
i didn't bother to read all the replies, but I have been waiting for this to come up. My answer to the question is NO!!!!! We made the right move. Now what would have happened if the South had General Lee?
