Anything that has any connection to Bill "douchebag" Simmons can be only so fair.

 

Cant really argue with that.

 

Yeah that actually seemed fairly reasonable.

 

Thats the best season preview I have seen this year for the Fins.

 

That is funny.

 

Dude brings a fresh and original stat thats puts history on Henne's side...I thought of a stat that might clarify whether or not an interception was risky or not in the context of winning. Meaning throwaways near the end of a game; such as down 14 with two or three minutes left. Whether pressing or preserving respectability, the interception could be deemed less than risky when viewed in the context of winning the game...But look at me trying to spin Henne's INT stats.

 

Even 14 INTs is alot if you're not throwing considerably more TDs

 

This. 14 INTs is quite a lot even if you're throwing a 2:1 TD:INT ratio (28 TDs to 14 INTs). For comparison, Josh Freeman last year threw 25 TDs to 6 INTs.

As for Barnwell's writeup, I'm not really a big Barnwell fan in general, but he's pretty decent here. I think he's glossing over some aspects of the team (assuming pass rush improvement from Koa Misi, declines to mention lack of defensive turnovers, declines to mention passer rating as a significant measurement) and overplaying others (Drew Brees comparison; really?). But on the whole this is a pretty decent preview.

But it's pretty bad when writers have to examine the Dolphins using generalities and vague speculation. There's a hell of a lot of uncertainty surrounding this team, probably more than any other NFL team.

 

Now thats journalism! I agree 100% with the author.

 

I agree Des that the Drew Brees thing is way overplayed. Drew Brees was the exception, not the rule.

I just hope that the season truly does go one way or the other. Let's either make it to the playoffs or get a top 10 pick. Let's remove all uncertainty about the leadership of the franchise once and for all, conclusively.

Don't give me an 8-8 or 9-7 in which Henne gets marginally better. Put up or shut up, for better or worse

 

Is this true?

 

I mean, I haven't gone through every QB's stats but Drew Brees made a huge, astronomical leap in his thrid year starting. He went from a QB rating in the low 70's to a 104 I believe.

 

I have always thought that was decently standard as most QBs tend to blow up on their third year starting.

 

That rule applies to wide receivers in fantasy football, not QBs.

 

:lol:

 

The rule applies to QBs. It is generally 1000 passes.

 

If Henne gets marginally better we'll see no parts of 8-8. I know its fun to go in on Henne for 20 pages at a time but it'll be the defense that decides the season, not the QB.

 

Ryan and Flacco both had significant improvements from year 2 to year 3. IMO year 2 is usually a bad one b/c defenses catch on to a QBs strengths and weaknesses. Thus the term sophomore slump. Year 3 is typically put up or shut up time, as someone already mentioned.

 

According to whom? I have never heard of this "rule" before. Neither has the NFL, apparently, because it takes a minimum of 1,500 pass attempts to qualify for the NFL's official career QB records listings. 1,500 pass attempts is generally 4 full years of competent starting QB play.

Even if the "rule" were 1,000 passes, that still wouldn't affect most QBs until toward the middle of their third year starting, which means the improved play wouldn't really take effect until their fourth year of starting.

 

KB did a good job of showing some research.

 

the interception could be deemed less than risky when viewed in the context of winning the game...But look at me trying to spin Henne's INT stats.
Put an asterisk with those interceptions,kinda like the one that bounce of the recievers into to the defenders hands for an easy pick.

 

I was arguing that Brees was a franchise QB since the draft and through his down year. I have never felt that Henne was a franchise guy. That being said, I do expect that Henne is capable of putting up that 2:1 TD:INT ratio. I don't get the Freeman example since that was the second highest TD:INT ratio in the league. Obviously that's hardly the dividing line between good and bad.

 

There are people on the board who want to see blood on the floor if the team is ahead 56-0 and Henne throws a poor pass, misses a wide open receiver, or..... GASP.... throws an interception. I mean, after all, Dan NEVER threw interceptions. Right?

 

Damn, D-nice droppin' tha science...

 

As a long-time Dolphin fan I reserve the right to say that anyone who doesn't think Miami is going to win the Super Bowl is full of ****!

 

This precisely. Those of us down on Henne aren't dead-set against him, we just don't think he is or will be the kind of quarterback necessary to win the Super Bowl. We would love to be wrong and would absolutely love to see Henne lead this team to a playoff berth (and maybe even a playoff win or four!) on the strength of his play.

Freeman seemed a good contrasting example since 2010 was his second year starting, same as Henne. Ryan and Flacco both started in 2008, so they have a year on Henne. I'm trying to keep comparisons of Henne to other QBs as apples to apples as possible just to avoid the seemingly inevitable counter-arguments claiming illegitimacy of method, but I guess that wasn't possible this time.

Which I'm not seeing a link to anywhere in your posts.

 

How does demanding henne be replaced equate with wanting him to succeed? Henne critics show no respect for the process of developing a qb into a viable starter. By and large they want a finished product without any growing pains. And most annoyingly, they insist on blaming henne for failures that mostly beyond his control. Not that anyone cares what a henne hater has to say, the front office and players especially, at the end of the day only the only opinions that matter are the ones of the guys in davie.

 

Who demanded that Henne be immediately replaced and with which available quarterback? There was a contingent that wanted Kyle Orton, but that had more to do with a positive view of Kyle Orton than a negative view of Chad Henne. More importantly, those who are regarded as the core "anti-Henne" crowd either didn't want Orton or are board with the suck for Luck strategy. In the latter case, those who want to suck for Luck are simultaneously on board with Henne being the starter, because to them that's an easy path to a high enough draft pick to get Luck.

I'd like to read those posts, because I haven't seen anything of the sort. There's definitely a recognition among those without faith in Henne that NFL quarterbacks have a development curve; the criticism of Henne is that he has not followed that curve, and instead has largely not improved in any meaningful way, with the team's exact same W-L record over the last two seasons coinciding with Henne's posting almost exactly the same passer rating over those two years.

Again, I'd like to read those posts. Also, your view of Henne as being an innocent bystander is incorrect. He had plenty of control over the offense, with Dan Henning specifically not calling plays and formations that Henne went so far as to publicly state that he disliked (fade passes, shotgun formation). Henne also had control over pocket protection, and it was he who held so many blockers back on so consistent a basis, not Dan Henning.

Chad Henne was responsible for his own play. He wasn't being remotely controlled. Tony Sparano wasn't on the sidelines with an Xbox 360 controller. He played to his ability. That's the core problem: what he gave us in 2010 was no better than what he gave in 2009, while other young quarterbacks in similar situations were taking steps forward. Josh Freeman dramatically improved in the same time frame, and Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco are further ahead still. You can look back on the previous generation of new quarterbacks, like Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers, and see how they made immediate impacts the second they were made starters.

We seem to have struck on our own Alex Smith, and we have the divided fan base to go along with it. I wish that we had a few 49ers fans on this forum to tell us how Alex Smith divided that particular fan base for years, almost eerily similar to the way Henne is dividing us now. Lines are drawn, emotions are inflated, straw men are constructed, and the utterly meaningless war is joined.

This front office spent the 2011 offseason and the first two weeks of free agency looking for a competitor and replacement for Henne. The Orton trade died because the Dolphins didn't want to pay Orton a huge contract; they had several quarterbacks on their draft board but whiffed; they did indeed inquire about Brett Favre but ruled him out when they discovered he can't even walk normally; and they considered submitting a draft pick for Terrelle Pryor.

And despite their stated aim of putting pieces around Henne right now, the 2011 draft's first four picks consist of players who are very raw at their positions and require extended time to develop: Pouncey has only played one year of center; Thomas has only played two years of running back in his collegiate career; Gates comes from a schematically simple college offense in Division II; and Clay has Gates' problem (inferior competition in Conference USA) plus having to learn new positions at the NFL level. It's almost as if, despite Jeff Ireland's statement, that we didn't draft to give Henne immediate help, but rather to give some new quarterback help in 2012 and 2013...

 

Dan Marino had a better than 2 to 1 ratio twice in his career. The first two seasons. I guess you wudda been complaining about him regularly too.

 

Marino had better than a 2:1 ratio more than twice in his career. You're shortchanging him a little bit there. But while Marino did have a relatively low TD:INT ratio, he also usually attempted up to 50% more passes per season than Henne, yet still winds up having a lower INT % than Henne (Marino 3.0% career, Henne 3.5% career).

Whether or not I would have complained is a different issue, but I can tell you that Marino was his own worst enemy at times.

 

It actually is a fairly well known rule of thumb. It's something many coaches say, that the game slows down for a QB once he gets about 1000 game attempts.

 

I thought Freeman had an anomaly type year. He's my fantasy team's QB, so I'm high on him, but a 4:1 ratio is incredibly uncommon. There is no way that is anywhere near a standard for any QB, much less a second or third year QB.

 

its a good writeup although i disagree on the henne is undersized part

 

any idea where this guy is ?

 

Again, I have never heard a single coach at any level state this "rule".

I never said that ratio was standard. Raf, I think you're reading things that aren't there.

He was banned, now he's unbanned. Posts sparingly from what I can tell.

 

I've been around football a long time. I sometimes forget that things I think of as "common knowledge" my not be as common among most fans.

 

All I'm saying is that I've never heard this "rule" stated by a coach at any level. So when Dupree called it a "rule", that clashes with what I've seen of coaching interviews, press conferences, statements, etc. And he's long since dropped the angle.

 

I believe you when you say you haven't heard it. I just know that it is in fact a rule of thumb that I've heard coaches, personnel guys and players say. But since my football background has exposed me to more than just what gets out in the media, I understand that most fans don't have the same knowledge base.