Up until recently I liked what we were doing on offense. The immediate thing that pops into my head when I think of "trick plays" on our offense is, of course, RW yesterday. I don't consider the WC part of this gripe. I like the wildcat. I like it especially down towards the endzone. What I don't like is when you're grinding the ball out on the ground and you decide to get cute - for whatever reason I don't know - and try to pass into the endzone out of the wildcat with a RB when A) as mentioned before you're gashing them up the gut and B) you have a QB who is more than capable against a defense who is pretty poor (currently ranked 23rd). It's not as if you're facing a top caliber defense and you need to find ways to trick them. What was working before? Running? Okay. Run some more. Or pass as we saw with Henne to Hartline (wow). I don't think we need to fire Henning but someone needs to tell him to not call crap like that when we're down towards the endzone. Especially if other stuff is already working. I just imagine what Henne must be thinking when we do stuff like this. I know him going to the sidelines can be seen as beneficial because he gets to talk to the co-ordinators and things of that nature, but I think it can also mess up his rhythm and it always seems that he's getting pulled in favor of the WC when he's doing alright. Then the drives seem to go to hell. I guess if getting rid of Henning is the only way that the "extra cute stuff when there's no reason for it" is going to stop then count me in, but I think this is partially because we don't have weapons on offense. I don't think he would call that if we had a #1 receiver or TE.. although I'm conflicted as to why he does when we can just pound it up the middle. The man is confusing.
For once I agree with Pete Prisco - As long as I live I'll never forget that play. 3 days later and I'm still furious. It completely defied logic. Our season is all but over because of it. IMHO, we win that game without that play call. Pure speculation of course, but I see it playing out completely different.
You know, I defended him a lot, but some of the play calls in that last game were a bit suspect. I'm on the fence now. I'd really like to see us be able to play the game without needing the WildCat, as entertaining as it can be. I just want to see us be a whole NFL team, where it's not a roll of the dice.
if the FrontOffice decides there is a better alternative it will be done. no one has a pass on a team in the middle of a rebuilding process, including the coaching cadre competition is the elixir of success let them compete
I don't mind the play calling (minus of course, that pass) so much as him not adjusting after the half. I'm all for Weis.
I was in attendance, and I turned to my wife in a stupor after each of these plays. I just couldn't understand why they were doing those things at that point. Even if they were successful, after I celebrated, part of me would be asking, was that really necessary at that point?? I honestly would have. Especially the pass, as you were asking Ricky to do something he hasn't done in a long time (as opposed to Ronnie, who has actually developed into a decent decision maker with the pass), and - thus - you don't even think about the possibility of a linebacker getting in the way of the direct path to the slightly open tight end. I think if we score that first one, it's demoralizing. The Bills, after going 3 and out, would have been down 7-0, and then would have receive the ball on or about the 20, as they did after the Ricky pick. Say, they go down, and even make the FG they missed. We come right back with another TD and are up 14-0 or 14-3 against a bad team, and the crowd would have been out of it (they were so quiet on our those two drives once we got the first first down of each drive). Instead, the crowd gets involved, and the Bills played off of that. Give them credit, what they lack in overall talent (besides WR where they are relatively stacked), they can make up for at times with effort and energy. Once those two things got involved, our chances went way down. I'd love to go to some alternate reality just to see how it would have played out if Ricky had scored on that first drive instead. Short of that, I hope Henning and Co. learn from it and we start to see some smarter playcalling form this point forward. I can only hope the Tuna took his buddy aside this week and told him as much! I don't think we need to fire Henning, but somebody like Tuna needs to have a heart-to-heart and help him hit the common-sense refresh button!
+1 to the bolded part. I was "lucky" enough to be at this game as well, and for those of you who only saw the game on TV I cannot stress how much that play got the crowd back into the game. The mindset of the fans literally went from, "Oh here we go again, classic Bills" to "Wait a sec, we can beat this team!!" in that one play. I saw it in the fans around me and you could see it in the entire stadium. When Miami drove down the field on their first drive, the fans were beaten already. It only took that one play, a play WE gave them with horrible play calling to get the fans back in it. Screw you, Dan Henning. Screw you. I do think he should be fired. And I say that with a pretty good track record of not having a knee jerk reaction to things such as "Fire this bum" or "Bench that bum". And I say this with a pretty good track record of not questioning the decisions of coaches who get paid tons of money to eat, sleep, and breathe football; HOWEVER, if you can make a call that bad in that situation there's no room in the NFL for you, IMHO. If you don't have the mindset to realize the risk / reward trade off in such a call, and the percentages of running 3 times against a patchwork defense versus passing, let alone a ****ing HALFBACK PASS, then you deserve to be fired. I'll be *****ing about this play 10 years from now. Especially if we miss the playoffs by one game.
This is obviously just opinion, I'm no football authority, but a buddy of mine is a big Cowboys fan - I was lamenting the gimmick plays from Sunday and he basically said, "yup, we had the same thing when Parcells was here, many a drive killed by a reverse to T.O. or Crayton..." Take it for what's worth, but it's his opinion that it's a bit of the Parcell's trademark. I have no time or inclination to verify it tho...
Crazy backlash. The guy screwed up massively. Hopefully he learned something now that they lost as a result of his decision-making. I'm not asking for his head just yet. We should give him time to bounce back, just as we give players time to develop, grow and to respond after failure. He's only been calling shots for under two years. People learn until they're 6 feet under, so let's hope he's game.
But we've already seen that he doesn't learn from these stupid decisions. That reverse to Henne against the Patriots absolutely killed us in that game. The man is a jackass.
I'm glad fans don't make front office decisions. We wouldn't have won the division last year and we wouldn't be in any position to be a playoff team without Henning. We have lousy talent on offense, this is how we score points. The halfback pass was dumb he deserves to be hammered for it, but to fire someone that has done so much good after one mistake is just idiotic. We still should have beaten Buffalo, it was one play, a huge one but it doesn't make the rest of the game a moot point. We still should have overcome that play, the entire team fell apart. People plays don't always work on offense, in fact probably half of them don't, defenses are good in the NFL, people make plays, players don't execute properly, it happens. The fan expectations for this team are outrageously out of proportion with the talent. We've lost our starting Qb have basically a rookie playing and we've lost our offensive MVP and we are supposed to be a great offensive team? Its going to take some trick plays and innovative ideas for us to have a shot. Henning deserves a lot more credit from the fans. I'm embarrassed to be a Fin fan right now,this thread is something that belongs on the Jest message boards.
I like to think that that Pass out of the Wildcat is an option pass. It comes back to Ricky, who should have perhaps tucked it and plowed forward. Can't really understand the Ginn end-arounds, although they have worked in the past (KC '08), and you have to put the ball into his hands somehow. That said, he's gotta be able to turn the corner. Putting in Pat White at the "Pistol" toward the end of the game was a head-scratcher, because Henne had just completed 2 really good passes. And Henne's next play in he gets picked to end that drive. Not good to trade a rookie QB's rhythm like that for 2 yards, but it did work against the Jets this year, so I can see why Henning would go back to it.
Please. Hennings playcalls have killed drives in just about every game this year. It happened last year as well. This is nothing new.
While I hope it happens as much as anyone, I have a queezy feeling in my gut we will have live through another year of his garbage play-calling.
Yeah, top-ten in passing offense last season with a castoff QB, no WRs, and a makeshift OL...what a ****ty job Henning did
What is the exact problem with the reverse call? The OC must have seen something in the previous plays that suggested it would work. I can't imagine he called it just to call it. He saw something Buffalo was doing, thought he had a chance (because all play calling is guess work) for a big play and it didn't work out. Now as for the Ricky interception... yea I can see the anger.
I could care less about what the stats say. I've seen Henning kill drives and lose a few games with his playcalling. That's all that matters.
Scoring points is all that matters. And the fact is, we score a lot more points than our talent indicates we should.
So you are going to give him credit for winning the first Jets game, and credit for how the offense played against the Colts right?
Henning is not horrible. I think if Sparano tightened the leash a little bit, things could improve. IMO, the staff as a whole (Sparano, Henning, and Lee) has gotten a bit full of themselves in wake of the wildcat success. The drafting of Pat White would have never happened if we didn't have success stretching the field in the wildcat. But White offers nothing that Ronnie doesn't, infact less. It's obviously still a work in progress. But I'd rather Sparano make a change offensively, and let Henning execute that change. It's a philosophical flaw, not a play calling flaw. Sparano has a say in the plays used in every game. He knew the Ricky pass was in the bag of tricks against Buffalo. He's probably the one that installed it that week. Overall, the offense needs to shift away from that crap.
The whole Wildcat idea was Parcells' before he even came to Miami. He put people in place to execute his plan. And I don't think his plan is going to change any time soon.
We score points when its at our own pace. We rarely show the ability to match the tempo of the game when time is running out. I say rarely instead of never because we did have a game winning drive against the Jets and Bucs. But for the most part, we are a slow offense that depends on 15 plays at 5 yards per play to score. That is a big problem when your defense sucks like ours does.
But that isn't the OC's fault correct? We don't have the weapons for 2 play 60+ drives by hitting the playmaker WR's. The OC is playing the hand he was dealt. He doesn't always play it right I will admit.
I recall Keyshawn Johnson on NFL Countdown, saying how when Parcells was at ESPN, he kept talking about it and saying how it would work at the NFL level...
OK. And we didn't score the first drive in SD. Ronnie Brown's fault bro. That doesn't mean they aren't great at what they do.
Henning is a joke bro the guy is clueless he fuzzes out and his brain tells him to get cute and then it happens
I'm not ready to fire Henning. He does a lot of things well. I think if we add an Owen Daniels to the mix next year, Henning looks much better. Our offense was a lot better when we had 2 TEs who could make an impact. Fasano is not the type of guy that will impact the passing game every week. He makes a good #2. Owen Daniels would go a long way towards solving this offense. Remember when it was the LT, Brees, and Gates show in San Deigo. We can have that with Ronnie, Henne, and Daniels. Start crossing your fingers now. So that means we're just a guinea pig to Parcells. Here I thought we turned to the Wildcat out of desperation. All along, it was the plan. We just decided to use it sooner rather than later. This season has thrown a lot of questions into the air in regards to the direction of this team. There is going to be 5x more pressure to win next year as there is this year. I just don't see us there yet. Too bad we can't just steal players from other teams like New England does (Moss, Welker).
So says you I would bet the majority of Dolphins fans WHO WATCH THE GAMES would agree with me Henning tries to be over creative and it kills drives
One thing that I think is part of this problem is that we have a rookie QB under center. Due to that, and what he's seen in practice, I think Henning feels the need to control the offense more, and win via his talents as an OC, versus putting it into the offense itself's hands, and letting them do their thing. I feel like he gave the offense more room to play games last year, especially since we were so clean on the injury front. This year he seems like he's really concerned about letting a defense get into a rhythm against our guys, and not as concerned with letting our guys get into a rhythm of their own. Whether thats for the good or bad I don't know. Who knows if he drops the cutesy stuff and we get absolutely stuffed. Maybe things become worse than that if it happens. It's not so much a knock as an observation. I'm still kind of out on my personal feelings on Henning. I'm like a freaking see-saw when I watch Dolphins games
