Per NFL Network: Seattle & Miami showing interest in Moss

I think he's trying to tell us something. Maybe posting it again for five or so times would help?

 

What's ironic is this ^^^^

Is all based on this ^^^^

which in the end, comes down to who your OC is and what his "style" or method is for play-calling.

We adapted our offense to be geared more toward the pass this year because our personnel and abilities now play toward this strength. While this is positive as it shows we can change and adapt to fit what works, it doesn't fix the errant play calls that don't make sense and kill drives, however. Please tell me I don't have to cite specific examples; you should know what I'm talking about.

 

That deep ball to Moss was a blown assignment by Eric Smith, not Darrelle Revis. Revis was playing trail and Eric Smith was suppose to rob the post. Smith got caught cheating and left his assignment.

 

great, that helps my argument!
(it was someone else who made that point, i was just replying).

 

I am not spamming anything! You guys are spamming our board with all this nonsense talk about a soon to be St Louis Ram.. I just dont understand why we dont focus on more important matters like the Baltimore Ravens.. A team Tony Sparano has never defeated. Not in Dallas and not in Miami...

 

Well said.

Henning has broken down his passing game before. He expects to have sixty plays on offense, with 24 of them being passes. 12 short, 8 intermediate, 4 deep balls. That's the average, per Henning.

 

No, I know, I was just making a point.

 

Repeating the same thing over and over is the definition of spam.

We can discuss whatever we damn well please.

Our opinions don't matter, so you deciding we should talk about something more important is ridiculous.

 

Which is why we throw the ball 38-39 times per game right?

 

i'm confused. you guys think the offensive philosophy is NOT defined by Henning and his calls?

 

Sooooo.....

Whoever is playing the Jedi Mind Trick on IronChef and forcing him to take part in this nonsensical thread....please stop. Ummmm....Kkk. Thanks.

 

I would say that the OC has very little to do with it. In fact, Henning was very much deep happy in Carolina. Yes, he has always been a run first guy, but he has never been afraid to go after the big play. Compared to his tenure with the Panthers, our current game plans appear more like Tony Ball than Henning Ball.

I honestly don't see a lot of errant playcalls if you take the fundamental philosophy into account. Let's take everybody's darling, the wildcat snaps on Sunday. Go back and read what Sparano has said about the Wildcat. They like it, his words, not mine, because it almost never produces negative plays. When they called on Sunday, up by 8 points, they didn't necessarily look for a first down or a score. Sure, they would have taken it, naturally, but the basic premise was: let's not kill ourselves in this situation. So what did they do? They went to the play they had identified as the least risky.

 

Repetition breeds success.

 

34 times per game. And yes, we've passed more than Henning targets. I believe that was one of Sparano's complaints a few weeks back. The first two or three weeks, the play calling was pretty balanced. His target is 60/40 in favor of run. From Henning, "The above percentage of pass and run is a healthy approach to football in any tightly played football game. To run more than 60% will result in low scoring unless we are definitely superior. To pass more than 40% could mean costly losses as the result of failure in pass protection with loss of ball possession and field position due to interceptions."

 

No, I don't think Henning defines the philosophy. He obviously has his share but this is Sparano's offense. Keep in mind that Sparano called plays in Dallas at one point.

 

Please don't include Minnesota's anomaly of 15 pass attempts. Miami has passed for at least 35 or 36 the last five games. Also clearly superior? I don't think you can get much better than Marshall-Moss-Bess.

 

That's his words and I'm not disagreeing with you regarding the trio.

 

The problem being that they don't want to pass 35 or 36 times a game. Both Sparano and Henning are on record saying so. They look to pass a lot less, not add another WR to pass more.

 

Dude seriously, shut up, we are talking about a St. Louis Rams player here.

Lets get back to more important stuff like some inside info I found on Ray Lewis:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XZDzOGFXts"]YouTube - Ray of Light (Ray Lewis)[/ame]

 

No I know that, but I think that's going to change significantly.

 

I don't know. You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that OC's don't have their own style. (Mike Martz, for instance). Henning is still calling the plays, so it's his design. If we have problems with the design, I don't see how you can try to find another scapegoat here. Sparano might have input on the overall run/pass structure (A - we don't know, and B - to what extent?). Still, some run & pass plays we execute better than others. We do seem to keep calling plays that don't work.

First off, you can't take 100% of what Sparano says in a press conference at face value. Second, Sparano is a guy who backs up his coordinators & assistant coaches; if one of his coordinators makes a call, Sparano backs him up - you know this. So we can't necessarily say just because Sparano agreed with it in the conference that it was Sparano's idea or call to make. We just know he backs up his guys.

But please don't make me start writing ALL the questionable calls down. I literally lose count even during the last game. The wildcat calls are just scraping the surface. 3 runs in a row versus NE in the final minutes. a run play called against Pittsburgh after their final field goal. Calling play-action on 3rd and 10 deep in our side of the field just this last weekend.

Granted, some of these are execution issues - but if we rarely execute properly on certain types of plays, why keep calling them? At some level Henning has to be liable. Either through the choice of plays called, failure of adaptation to our strengths, or just timing of the calls. If there wasn't a problem with any of that, you wouldn't have the majority of the fans calling for his head, I believe.

It's like they say, where there's smoke...

 

We'll make you a deal; if Randy Moss becomes a Ram, Lucky will give you a front-body massage. If he doesn't, you're banned...and Lucky will give you a front-body massage. Deal?

 

I'm not looking for one. And yes, OCs have their own style. So do HCs. If you have an offense minded HC (like Sparano), he and the OC have to be compatible in their approaches. And besides, Sparano does wear a mike and is actually in charge. You think he would allow what you call countless questionable plays if he wasn't down with it? Then you might as well post a garbage bin on the sideline and put a Dolphins hoodie on it.

It definitely has a lot more merit than anything you or I could conjure up in front of the PC, having nothing else to do. So when the question is why do we call the wildcat, the most definite answer we're going to get is out of the mouth of the guy in charge.

I already explained to you why we call one of the things you so desperately loathe. You might not like the explanation - and that's fine - but it is what it is.

Show me a fanbase that doesn't scream for its OC's head and I show you a Superbowl winner. Seriously though, I really think people need to realize that Sparano is happy with Dan Henning and that he's actually down with how Henning calls games.

 

the problem is the "explanation" we get from them doesn't answer the questions, as evidenced by Sparano's wanting to be run-first yet most of our plays called are passing.

I gave you thanks because I appreciate the discourse, vendigo, and also because you're right - neither of us have anything to base our debates on other than what we see on the field.

Of course I see drives stalling due to questionable calls and a serious issue of scoring, which is what drives my point of view here...

 

There's not necessarily a contradiction here. The fact that they want to run it badly doesn't mean that they are capeable to right now. If you look at the games this season, you'll see that they tried hard to establish the run early. It just didn't work consistently well enough. That forces you to pass a lot more than you'd like.

Likewise, mate

 

Well you missed my point there. My point was that Sparano can have his "design" all he wants, but if Henning strays from that by throwing more passes (or whatever it may be), then you have to acknowledge that perhaps the overall offensive philosophy doesn't necessarily have Sparano's entire stamp of approval.

Take the defense, for instance. I'm sure Sparano tells Nolan some basics of what he expects from the unit, and asks Nolan to get them there. Nolan adds his flavor, does it how he sees fit, and as long as the results are in line with what Sparano wants, all is kosher.

Now back to the OC - Sparano might say his philosophy dictates "x number of runs per game", and Henning might repeat that during the conferences since that is what Sparano wants. Yet still they stray.

To be fair, I don't think you can cite the stray and errant play-calls as being Sparano-based anymore than I can cite Henning as being the source of my frustration. I realize Sparano has called plays before in Dallas, but absent rare cases of an override by Sparano, we have to assume Henning is calling the plays. So when I see a wildcat call, which has had a 1.2 YPA success rate called on a 3rd and 8, I know that I'm upset at Henning, not Sparano.

 

Just one more point: As I've tried to reason, those calls and scoring issues are a direct result of an underlying philosophy. Yes, it's frustrating to score FGs all day long. But the point is that we put ourselves in a position to win games any given Sunday. And we quite often do. And it's not as if this was a new issue ... we couldn't put a single team away in 2008 either (aside from the wildcat win against a flabberghasted Pats team). The approach wins ugly, but it wins. I'm just not sure if it's ever going to win you a championship, but that's another story.

 

counterpoint: if one of those FG's during the Pittsburgh game is a TD instead, we win that game.

EDIT: aaaaand we've completely derailed a Moss thread into a Dan Henning thread!

 

ya tony coaching the offensive line i am sure had tons to do with that

 

Go ask Freeman & Mathis (or the Giants boys, Umeniora, Tuck, and Kiwanuka) how they feel about it. So are you saying that it's actually better to have a 7 minute drive that ends in a FG rather than a 3 minute drive that ends in a TD? More points early on for our offense means our defense has a better ability of dictating games where Wake can tee off against the pass just as the above mentioned guys do.

There can also be balance between the 2. There can be a long drive for a score...... followed by a 3 and out by the opponent...... then a quick strike by us. That can put some serious pressure on a team.

 

Don't tell me. Tell Tony

I'm afraid you missed my point: Henning strays from that out of necessity, not out of some misplaced inclination to do his own thing. If you can't establish a consistent run game, you have to pass. It's as easy as that, really.

And based on the fact that Sparano wears a mike, is in charge of the whole team and has kept Henning around for three years, we also have to assume that Henning calls it pretty much the way Sparano wants. If he didn't, then all Sparano has to do is utter the word "no" in his mike.

 

Wr's and Qb's and Offensive Coordinators, what is it about Dolfans that causes such mental issues?

Every time.

 

I'm actually a fan of the pass-heavy offense at the moment, but my point was that since Henning has the freedom to make those adjustments and calls, clearly the calls that i have HUGE problems with came from him. (Unless Sparano is calling the 10+ plays a game that are head-scratchers)

I realize a coordinator must do things to stay in the good graces of the HC; that doesn't mean every call will get the approval though. I highly doubt Sparano is 100% happy with Henning's every play call. Of course a couple of errant play calls won't get you fired either, so tenure alone isn't necessarily a ringing endorsement - especially when Sparano didn't really "build" the team and is doing his part to work with what he's been given.

Next game I'll just have to keep track of the plays & write down every time I want to throw my remote at the TV.

 

Plus we're not always going to be playing with a lead, and we'll need that quick strike ability to put us right back in a game rather than a clock eating drive.

Crap, how many big plays have we given up that have put our opponents over the past 2 season that have cost us the game or nearly cost us? We need that ability in our arsenal too.

 

None of this is about Moss. It's about upgrading our #2 WR position which is a sore thumb right now. If anyone has any better ideas as to whom we can acquire, then I'm all ears.

This is also about establishing some depth at WR. We have a shot at a SB run.... but what happens if Marshall, Bess, or Hart go down? Are we going anywhere with #3 & #4 rookie free agent WRs?

Moss is as much of an insurance policy as he is an upgrade over Hart..... and having Marshall, Moss, Hart, and Bess on the field at the same time is MUCH better than Marshall, Hart, Bess, and Wallace!!

 

I never said anything is better.

In regards to your hypothetical, a lot depends on circumstance. You are also ignoring the risk presented with an increased number of deep throws. I'd rather have a 7 minute FG drive, than a 30 second INT drive, giving the opponent the ball in our territory. More points is better, but only if its done efficiently. You can score 30 points, but if you throw 4 INTs, you're putting your defense in a position to give up a lot more points.

 

It's actually pretty difficult to be intercepted on a deep ball if that's what you're worried about. If anything it's more likely when you go across the middle of the field, under pressure or a poor play action pass....

When you throw deep the likeliest result is an incompletion or a PI call which is fine for you. General rule when you have Randy Moss in single coverage down the field or in a relatively good spot against double coverage is throw it. It's probably a 55 yard pass, chances are it's a 15 yard return maximum in the unlikely event of a pick. That's harmless especially on third down. Constantly bringing the defense into the box against you or throwing a 20 yard pass to try to move the chains is dangerous unless you check down, which is what Henne often does to avoid a turnover.

 

You have to have a multifaceted team to win it all no questions asked. Going into the Superbowl with a short yardage offense is just asking for it. I mean let's say the Dolphins put up 20, chances are a great team will find a way to put up in the high 20s.

Imagine this Dolphin team versus the Giants that's a SB.

Imagine this team versus the Patriots that's an AFC championship game.

Against Pittsburgh-NY-Baltimore that's the road there. Can we beat them 4-0? That's crazy talk. You must take the next step.