http://espn.go.com/nfl/playbyplay?gameId=301118015&period=0 Here's ESPN's play by play of our game. It will take you maybe two minutes to read. I was very upset with the play calls and giving R&R 6 carries. However, after looking at the play by play, down and distance, etc, I don't see any glaring mistakes. Maybe I'm missing something. Can anyone point out Henning's huge mistakes?
there is none. its what sparano was explaining to the media this morning and last night. if you look at the situations passing was the only option. but let people find fault where none resides. it makes them feel better thinking the game was lost because of bad coaching rather than acknowledging the talent is what did us in
3rd and 11 (I think) play action pass. In fact, 3 consecutive play action plays that were so obvious that Thigpen had no time to go through his reads since the bears were already in his face.
People keep on mentioning that, however if Thigpen threw the ball to Fasano right away it would have been a completion. The linebacker actually stopped to play the run.
It's easy for us to say that; watching from home, but I don't blame Thigpen for not finding an open receiver when you have Urlacher hunting you down.
That is the exact thing he IS EXPECTED TO DO though. If he can't do that then why is he even in the league.
I know but I'm saying, somehow people thought he was the savior. Laughable. How about make a gameplan that doesnt put the entire fate of the team in the hands of the 3rd string QB?
Jesus Christ put together one damn dive and you are in the football game or even winning it. Remember it was 3-0 then 6-0 then 9-0. We abandoned the run in a very winnable game and put it all on Thigpen's shoulders. Henning should be euthanized and Sparano should be shot for letting him continue to do this
anywhere... just because its 2nd and long doesn't mean you have to pass... if we had Henne in then i'd say ok, but you have a 3rd string QB who has had 1 practice as the starter... 1st and 10 1st drive 1st and 10 again 1st drive - dont run a reverse with a QB who is not used to the spacing/timing of a complex play, run a standard running play 2nd and 19 1st drive 1st and 10 3rd drive 1st and 10 4th drive 2nd and 10 4th drive do you really need this exercise? i understand when you get into 2nd and longs you might want to pass, and if we had an experienced quality QB in the game I would do that, but we had to lean on the running game... we had to protect our 3rd string QB and instead we put more pressure on him, but putting the ball in his hands on 2nd and 3rd and longs... not to mention this damn shuffling of RBs... just leave Ronnie out there and let him pound, he gets stuffed or negative losses much less than Ricky...
So, we cannot run when healthy, and you want us to do so with subs and the walking wounded against the 2nd best run D in the NFL? Then, add in Marshall going down, and the Bears hoping we would run. The box was stacked to overflowing proportions.
sparano confirms that we tried early and did nothing but set ourselves back On how frustrating it in having a play of at least negative 9 yards attached to the first four of his possessions in the first half yesterday: "It's frustrating, I'm glad you said that. At least it tells me somebody's watching the game…but to be honest with you, that really put us behind the chains and took us a little bit out of a game plan in that unfortunately some of those plays were run plays (you know) in other words--we had a reverse that we had called which if executed..if the handoff was executed properly I think the thing is going to look like it did against Cincinnati. (I mean) we had Julius Peppers knocked down, he's got inside of Ronnie (Brown)…Ronnie (Brown) does a good job and we have the edge and that ends up being a big minus play. (You know) we run a boss play out there on a first down play which we get a holding penalty on (you know). Now you're in a 20 situation, so we had about three of those situations where (you know) early on those were the negative plays (I mean) the bottom line is in the first eleven plays we ran the ball 5 times and we had minus 8 yards. So, that's not very good and (you know) we got to do a better job of that. Everybody wants to know why you didn't run the football…but, we had 23 plays in the first half of the football game yesterday--and the last four of those 23 plays we were in a two-minute drive (you know) just there at the end where we got the ball back with about a minute and forty seconds left…so those were four passes. But, I think part of it is the minus plays within the run game and the minus plays that put us behind the chains. (You know) we had a couple of penalties yesterday after plays made that put us behind, so. You can't overcome that particularly with a young quarterback…I think it's really hard to overcome the minuses." http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-tony-sparano-dolphins-bears-comments,0,1893079.story but hey the fans know better
Personally, I would have liked to see us go to a spread/pistol/Wild Thig. I wnder if that was on the drawing board for the second half, before Marshall went down.
Its not like the run was stuffed and the passing was working... the passing was worse than the running. At least running would help our D get a breath.
why, you have to move the chains to give the defense a rest. if we are averaging less than 3 yds a carry that means we are going three and out most likely if we run. at the end of the day it was a pick your poison kind of game. there was nothing we were going to do to change the outcome with the players we had that ere suited up
Then go WC or someting just quit throwing it every god dam down. It doesn't work. Isn't the WC designed to help boost the running game yet we didn't see it once. You can keep on defending it all you want adam but the bottom line is Henning is totally clueless to stuations and panics. He is an old senile SOB who has just got to go.
you were the guy saying attack the middle of the field. now you're back to we should have run. make up your mind already
You attack the middle of the field when you throw the fuggin' ball. I still wanted to run the ball... jesus christ man stop mixing words just to defend that worthless a-hole
He's still a professional QB. He's played QB since high school (you'd think). It isn't like he doesn't know what to expect or what to anticipate
ah whatever. if we had run the ball more people would be complaining that we didnt give thigpen a chance to win the game. if we pass its because we didnt run enough. there's never anyone who comes up with a reason why we should do anything. you never hear we should have been running more off tackle plays because Carey was manhandling his guy (he wasn't its just an example of a constructive criticism as opposed to a "he sucks" argument) or we should have been attacking the safeties because they were creeping up in the box. Its just he sucks and the reason he sucks is well because he sucks. The b ottom line with last night's game is every single one of our offensive linemen was losing his battles against the defense....Long, Carey, Proctor, Jerry, etc....There is no scheme or playcalling devised by man that can overcome that poor offensive line play. None
Eleven carries between R&R against Baltimore in a loss Twenty three carries between R&R against Tenn in a win Seven carries between R&R against Chi in a loss Henning jump started the running game with the WC in which game?
bears ranked #2 vs run/ #1 overall ravens ranked #8 vs run/ #7 overall titans ranked #11 vs run/ # 9 overall which defense did we have the most success running against
So the ranking dictates you throw every down. That is horrible logic. You have to adjust and make it happen. Looks like you have the same belief as Henning and Sparano. You give up without trying. With that mindset we should just always punt on 1st down.
not the ranking the personnell and matchups. the short passing game was the right strategy. if thigpen would have been able to hit more of those we would have loosened up the defense to allow us some more rushing attempts. They were stacking the box daring us to throw. That is why calling for more run plays is ludicrous. The defensive alignments dictated that the way to attack them was through the air. with our poor pass blocking we couldnt risk throwing deep so the short passing game was the right call
are people still really defending Henning? smh its simple... yes the Bears run D is good, doesn't mean you never run at all... you still have to try to establish it... ESPECIALLY when you have your 3rd string QB in the game... i dont care what defense you play, teams have to run the ball to keep DEs from pinning their ears back every snap trying to kill your QB... which as you can see is exactly what happened to Thigpen and our Oline lets look at every 1st down in the game with the score: 0-0 pass 0-0 reverse 0-0 run 0-3 pass 0-6 pass 0-6 pass 0-6 run 0-6 pass 0-6 pass 0-9 pass then its finally to a point where its acceptable to pass more often after the Bears score the TD, and what happens? 0-16 Run! and to ricky of course, why even have Ronnie on this team? 0-16 Run again, this time to Cobbs, Ronnie who? 4th quarter we didn't run at all, which makes sense... though still thought play action would help smh smh smh I swear when you look at the majority of games this year, you just end up scratching your head with Henning... and to those defending him, dont you see that as a problem? the fact that you have to keep finding reasons for all his actions, that he needs to be defended and found excuses for after every game even wins?? smh smh smh im so tired of Henning its ridiculous... im usually a optimist homer in every regard, i still liked Ginn, i had faith in Beck, i hoped for the best in Feely, I supported Cameron, etc... usually dont say a bad word about any dolphin (besides Ricky) but Henning HAS to go, he has ruined this entire season for this team... completely unacceptable... and the fact that Sparano keeps defending him and wont make a change is making me turn on Sparano too, eventhough ive been a big Tony backer from the start...
Exactly. John McKay would have put it perfectly... "we can't run and we can't pass. otherwise we're doing great." 3rd string O-line vs #1 defense in football. Epic fail. Baltimore game I was adament about more running plays... this game I just can't get past the horrendous play of the offensive line. Didn't stand a chance. Couldn't stop our running backs from getting destroyed in the backfield, and couldn't keep our 3rd string QB on his feet. This year's O line is a serious downgrade from last year. Boy I'm glad we don't have injury-prone guys like Jake Grove and Justin Smiley, our line is so much more healthy this year.
Running vs Da Bears, with the players available to us, is similar to banging your head against a brick wall. The only time it feels good is when you stop. LOL
How did those first down plays turn out? I know the first one was a 9 yard completion, and that end around was WIDE OPEN.
I don't have a beef usually between calling a run or a pass. It's usually which pass, where the routes go, where the ball is designed to go, and where the weaknesses are against the coverage. Calling run vs. pass is easy enough. Calling the right run or pass is the hard part. The part I'm not sure we have down.
man i loved john mckay's quotes. one of the all time best "We didn't tackle well today but we made up for it by not blocking." "Emotion is highly overrated in football. My wife Corky is emotional as hell but can't play football worth a damn." "They were absolutely horrible and that’s the best thing I can say. Besides that they were bad. These people are not poorly paid you know.” "Three or four plane crashes and we're in the playoffs."
We have a pro bowl WR, one of the best slot receiver's in the game, two RBs who have been to the pro bowl, [I don't think it's their fault they're rarely given a chance to pick up any kind of momentum] , two pro bowl LBs [Wake is an MVP candidate], a pro bowl kicker, a mostly promising DB corps, and a pretty dang good defensive line, but yet talent is the reason for that embarrassment. I can't believe what I read when I saw that. Oline depth is an issue. Last night we saw what happens when you constantly turn over the bottom of your roster. Aside from the special teams catastrophes that can happen. But this team still has enough talent to win with. It's time to stop making excuses for the coaches.