just some observations watching the pats - lions game and tom brady. for lack of a better term, i will call what the pats did today with the passing game (at least today) the "shortest distance theory." if you bear with me i think it will make sense the common and obvious truth is that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. ok, so big deal, right? well it seems like the pats apply this to their offensive philosophy with regard to play design and timings of plays. it appears that the pats plays are designed to limit the flight distance of the ball down the field to be as close as possible to the yardage of the receiver getting the pass. now, they have their quick screens that are great with timing and spacing that defense, but they seem required for what the pats are "really" trying to do...that is, getting quick plays down the middle with the ball traveling directly down the field. from memory and especially today, you rarely see a 15 yard out or comeback thrown by brady. if it is to the sideline, it is either very short or very deep. its also why almost every "dump off" is over the middle. shortest distance for the yards gained. it happens fast and defense has less time to react. by contrast, nearly every outlet in the dolphins offense is to the sideline. there, the defense has an extra defender with the sideline and as the ball is traveling at least twice the length as a brady dump off (ball flight distance), the defense has more time to react. everything is set up to get the ball as quickly as possible directly down the field within the hashmarks usually. thats why it seems that good initial coverage gets brady on the turf they also seem to apply this to the running game. almost everything is straight ahead. not a lot sweeps at all. its all quick hitting point is, the team has worked will with eliminating brady's weaknesses and build a whole philosophy around his strengths. if henne is indeed the guy, this is how you do it.
NLFN liked to call it small ball & Brady has executed to perfection. Their OC is smart enough to base all the philosophy on Brady's strength and it has worked for them. With how stubborn or short minded Henning is, I'm not sure he will gameplan to Henne's strength or not. So far we have seen that he doesn't adjust his system to his players & we end up one of the lowest TD scoring team in the league. We have games left to see if Henning does change or he stays the same. I don't have faith in him to change though. We shall see if he does though.
