Henning was slightly better in PC against tenn. I still think he needs to go. Regardless, we have no shot at the playoffs if we cant run the ball.

 

A weapon is fine yeah we need one but you have to find holes in the Bears zone Thurs. That is the crux this week. Use Cobbs... Fasano and move the sticks. Put Thigpen on the move.... It's about space and not the deep balls. Marshall's frustration is self important.

 

I certainly wouldn't say the Denver had much of a supporting cast around Marshall. Marshall is on pace to have the same numbers with Miami he had with Denver...98 catches, 1159 yards, 2 TDs...

TD catches are down, but from what I recall Henne has not been willing to risk throwing to Marshall in the end zone where a jump ball. I think Henne has been over-coached resulting in not taking any risks.

 

dan henning's playcalling hasnt been the problem. its been the players execution. if marshall's routes are predictable that is because they are meant to be. they are designed to simply move the defender or defenders to where we want him to be while we attack the vacated area or a different area entirely. if i want marshall to take the corner and safety with him to clear out an area underneath I am not going to call a route that will confuse the DBs. I want the DBs to know exactly where my receiver is going because the goal of the route is to have them follow him. Marshall is being used to stretch zones to open up the underneath stuff. Its pretty obvious that Henning is using Marshall's threat to open up areas for the other receivers usually underneath but against tennessee also across the middle

 

That's ludicrous considering all they did was play Finnegan on him with only a little help against him deep. That's nothing.

 

The thing about decoys is that they aren’t effective if you don’t use the right bait. Marshall can’t be a decoy based on only past reputation. He needs to prove it. That means he actually needs to be utilized in the passing game—none of these silly reverses or gimmick passes to Pat Cobbs—for any of what you describe to work consistently.

 

well he's on pace for over 1000 yds so its not like we're abandoning him, its just we're not going to target him 20 times a game.

 

i was speaking about the season more than just the tennessee game but even the tennessee game you had two other receivers gain almost 100 yds each in Fasano and Hartline. Who are you going to attack Finnegan or a rookie Verner? or a middle linebacker? or Chris Hope?

 

1000 yards isn’t a huge target these days. Maybe to us it is, because haven’t had good receiver play in a decade, but to the rest of the NFL it’s just par for the course. The big problem with Marshall is that his production is declining week to week.

Week 6: 10 rec, 127 yards, 0 TD
Week 7: 5 rec, 57 yards, 0 TD
Week 8: 5 rec, 64 yards, 0 TD
Week 9: 5 rec, 30 yards, 0 TD
Week 10: 3 rec, 34 yards, 0 TD

That is not a respectable decoy.

 

These comments and Ed Reeds comments. And people still defend our senile OC who's been a part of 9 winning seasons and 5 top 10 offenses in his 31 NFL season career.

 

he will be leaned on more in the upcoming weeks especially if thigpen is starting and because of that his routes will become less predictable. Henning will dial up variations of the routes and the DBs will think they know whats coming and it will be something different

 

name his QBs in those years and you will understand those numbers. His reputation has always been he can get more with less. Its funny how fanbases hate the guy yet in coaching circles the guy is considered one of the best. Just shows the disconnect between armchair gms and the real stuff

 

If. If. If.

I have no faith in Henning’s ability to adjust at halftime, let alone with three days against a poorly-coached Bears team that’s scrambling to dig up archived footage of Thigpen from his KC days.

 

Blame it on the QB. Henning is terrible, most people know this. Sadly most of those people doesn't consist of Sparano, who's fairly incompetent in his own right. It's quite obvious by his philosophy and playcalling. The only reputation he has, is one of being terrible conservative. Anyone looking to compete sure wouldn't hire him. Which probably explains his career on losing teams, and bad offenses. But yea, keep blaming his terrible track record on the QB's. Keep telling yourself he's done more with less, when the fact is that hasn't been good enough only being a part of 5 top 10 offenses, and only 9 winning seasons in 31 years.

You'll come around when he's gone and the offense miraculously starts putting up points. Though if you've been so naive up to this point, perhaps you'll just find another excuse for him. Though there's also a good chance our offense doesn't get better as Morano is as big a problem as Henning is.

 

Fasano beeing that wide open is because of marshall

 

well since you know so much about being an offensive coordinator why dont you describe some of his run blocking concepts or his passing philosophy

 

It's sad you have to go to your 3rd string QB to finally utilize Marshall properly.

In other news the play-calling was a pleasant surprise Sunday. Right after Henne threw that pick I wasn't even mad; I was ecstatic that we were calling so many deep plays. How much perspective does that put it in if I'm celebrating the OC's call when the QB throws a pick? :lol:

As to the comments from opponent DB's, I 100% believe them. Why would two different DB's from two different teams make this up? They'd have no motivation. They also backed up their claims by largely shutting out Marshall, and (in Baltimore's case) intercepting Henne multiple times. The proof is in the pudding.

Henning needs to switch it up more, which he was starting to do in the Tennessee game.

 

i think thats a valid criticism this year. i liked his halftime adjustments last year but this yeaar they havent been stellar

 

We wont be that predictatable this thursday....at least in the first half.

 

And expensive. What would that make Marshall...a $45 million decoy? Shoot man, gimmie one tenth of that, and I'd be as giddy as a school boy on prom day.

I also believe the story is true. And, I think TP said it best...if this isn't an indictment of how bad Henning is, then I don't know what is.

 

the key quote finnegan had was "the formation tells me the route except when he's trying to trick you" (paraphrasing) well guess what, those 80% of the time you know the route, we're not targeting Marshall, we're targeting others. We're setting you up as a DB to get comfortable thinking you know the routes and our tendencies based off formation so that when we do want to get the ball to marshall we switch it up and run a play to "trick" you by breaking our tendency. there are plays called in the course of the game that are meant to set you up for a bigger play down the road.

Also, anyone who knows Henning, knows that the guy's modus operandi is to attack the weakness of a defense not go after its strength. Thats why we are always throwing underneath against cover 2. That and we dont have a seam busting TE or a slot receiver with speed. Cortland Finnegan is not the weakness of the Titans secondary. Verner was the guy we were targeting and the middle of the field. just like we targeted Kyle Wilson against the Jets. If you want to know who we are going to attack look for the weakest spot in the defense. The Bears defense is tough. I dont expect to be attacking Urlacher and we're probably going to avoid Tillman. I expect Tim Jennings to have the crosshairs on him. I could also see Bess targeted if Daniel Manning is on him.

As for the criticism that we should attack with our best players rather than always rely on the best matchups, I think there is a grain of truth to that. I would like to see a bit of a tweek where we target Marshall a bit more regardless of matchups. Just a touch though. I dont want to target Marshall 15 times a game if there are better matchups out there but eight to ten attempts should be the minimum. When we go under eight attempts I feel we're not giving him a chance to create. But thats just nitpicking and slightly different philosophy. Thats not a reason to say he sucks.

 

and just to add. lets not forget which defenses we have played

1) against the best defense in the league (pts against) green bay, we scored the 3rd most points in the season against them and beat their average 15.9 by 7.1 points by scoring 23

2) against the 3rd best defense the Jets we scored the most points they have given up all year and beat their average 16.7 points against by scoring 23

3) against the 5th best defense the steelers we scored the second most points they gave up all year and beat their average of 18 by scoring 22

4) against the 9th ranked titans defense we scored the second most points all year 29 against their average of 19.9

baltimore is the only top ten defense that shut us down by holding us to 10 points. now we face the 2nd best defense in the league with a 3rd string QB and two injuries to the offensive line and i almost guarantee if we score the average they have given up 16.2, people will say its because henning sucks lol not because of the defnse or the presonal we have to play with

this schedule is brutal lol. after the bears game we will have played four of the top five defenses in the league. how sick is that?

 

Your logic doesn't make sense.

It doesn't take into account the concept of a progression...at all.

Your entire argument is based on the assumption that every play call has an intended target and it should go to that intended target.

This is false.

 

Lol, I was the same way. I wasn't even mad, I was happy we threw it deep.

 

well i simplified the argument. an extended elaboration on it would take several pages. as for intended target, i believe he does run a "concept" offense that has a primary target on almost every play depending on the defensive alignment. He does target the weakest link in almost every game. Obviously if the play isnt there then the QB should go through his progressions but henning isnt one to just draw up plays for the sake of drawing plays. there's a reason behind his playcalling and it usually revolves around exploiting the weaknesses of the defense. at least in the passing game. with running, when he has a dominant running game (not this yr) he will pound the ball even if its to the defenses strength. but this year that isnt working so we are almost always targeting the weak links sometimes at the expense of playing to our strengths if you consider marshall our strength

 

As Henning himself said, he draws up plays to where if you had three different QBs running the play the ball might go to three different spots, based on what the QB sees. Your logic that the 80% of routes that Cortland Finnegan knew were all decoy routes and that the other 20% were intended for Marshall is therefore just bad logic. The offense heads to the line with two plays, the play call and the kill call. Based on how the defense lines up against the play, based on where if anywhere the blitz is coming from, and if there's motion they can tell whether they're playing zone or man, that sets up the quarterback's progression. Brandon Marshall could find himself being the #1 target on any of the plays, based on how the defense lines up and what they show, not just 20% of them.

Therefore the fact that Cortland Finnegan is able to study film and guess 80% of Brandon Marshall's routes before the play begins simply by looking at the formation, is an unqualified negative. It is not intended, not anymore than Peyton Manning intended for Zach Thomas to know before the play started when he was calling a screen. Cortland Finnegan was basically saying that he > Dan Henning. He beat Dan Henning. Henning was not a match for him.

And I find that disturbing. As do many others.

 

I like the fact that Henning gives different looks, and occasionally will throw a play up, and make it look like something you've already seen before.

My issue though comes in the fact that we've got good receivers all over the field. Hartline, Bess, and Marshall are all good enough to be a viable target on any down. Since we seem to only got 2-3 wide all the time, that's kind of an issue. If the other side has good coverage on your intended target, you're really shooting yourself in the foot.

I don't think there is really any way you can sugar coat 1/2 to 1/3 of your receivers (minus the RB checkdown) having their routes telegraphed to the defense. Even Brandon Marshall isn't going to be able to pull that off all that often. I mean heck, if Finnagin knows what route Marshall is running, barring a total screw up on his part, he really doesn't even need help from the safety for double coverage.

I'm not claiming to be an expert or that I know more than the next guy. It just seems to met that someone's sole purpose out there is to be a decoy on one down, to set up a potential big play down the road, it just doesn't make much sense. Why reduce your chance of scoring points now, for a chance to possibly (assuming everything works as it should) score later?

 

Well good coordinators adapt the gameplan, when it is predictable, especially when the defense adapts/knows to what the offense is trying to do....sounds like from the comments being made by multiple players, on different teams, on different weeks, that there isnt much adaptation going on by Coach Henning.....

 

This would never happen to say, a Norv Turner offense :001_rolleyes: