right, but Miami needs more time sustaining drives...this stuff isnt cutting it....for as good as Miami's defense is right now, they will be dog *** tired by Week 8 if this keeps up...
I am all for running the ball, I love the smash mouth stuff, because it wins games hence our 2-0 start. However the biggest downside to this is it keeps the game close and can allow the other teams to stay in the game. This has been very evident in the recent past when our D started strong but could not finish. It is VERY apparent that this D can play the full 60 mins I just hope they can do it all year. I believe Henne had 5 attempts in the first half. If we plan on playing this type of game all year, and we will, we have to up our TOP. I just hope they dont have Henne gun shy. All I can do is trust the powers that be and pull for my team. GO DOLPHINS!!
LOL...this is truly sad. We're 2-0, held the lead for 120 straight minutes, and people want to find fault in our brief 2010 record. I would expect that from Jets fans, but Fin fans? Come on.... The part that this entire analysis does not show is a defense that was winning the football game. Turnovers make or break a team, so if you're winning the turnover battle and the scoreboard is in your favor then a boring, safe offense is the way to go. The analogies of being 0/3 with an empty backfield are ridiculous as well...nobody could be that dumb to believe such made up stats. Here's another one for you... During the 1st quarter, I was eating M&M's. The first time I took a blue one out of the package and ate it, Henne completed a deep pass. When I ate a red one, he was sacked. Later, when I ate the final two M&M's in the package Ronnie Brown ran for 10+ yards each time. Because there was only three blue M&Ms in the package the Miami offense struggled in the first quarter, which is actually a conspiracy of the Mars Company because they're true Minnesota fans. Favre completed several deep passes throughout the game because the packages of M&M's in Minnesota must have a much higher ratio of blue M&M's to any other color. You can't base any findings on three tries, or even one full game for that matter. My above statement is 100% just as true as yours, and neither one of them mean anything.
I disagree with your first statement, I think Zod did an excellent Job of posting his concern's that he see's with his eye's. The question is, do you respect his eyes enough to formulate your opinion on the situation. or do you see it differently?.. I respect his concern's and understand where he is coming from, however I think this staff does thing's in unconventional way's...let me explain, During the preseason it was evident that they were being vanilla to the extreme..they let their players learn to play strait up, mano e mano..Do you think there is any correlation to the way we have dominated in that fashion on the road the first two game's?...I do
Zod, great break down. Sometimes it isn't Henne that isn't executing, it's the receiver. Such as on that TE screen Henne was a little rushed and Fasano didn't have enough seperation. If Henne floated it there would have been a chance of an INT. The Marshall route on the goal line; where was he supposed to be? Obviously Henne expected him to turn in. I agree it seems to be about protecting him but he is making strides. Beautiful touch on that Hartline TD and the deep Go by Marshall. That intermediate out by Hartline against zone was nice as well.
Not to nitpick, but Henne admitted on the sideline that was his fault with Marshall on the goal line. Whether that was just him manning up to keep things cool who knows.
All of these pro's and con's articles are not talking about a QB under center in a 4-5 wide formation with no RB, and if his whole reasoning is to help Henne by not taking his eyes off the coverage than why the hell did he do the same formation with Pennington? Did Pennington need to be treated with kit gloves? NO. He runs this ridiculous formation for other reasons obviously not to assist our young QB. I only have a problem with the QB being under center when there is no protection for him if the defense sends "numbers". Sadly you will see it Sunday night, he will line up under center with no help and the Jets will send 2 LB's and nothing good will happen.
DJ- I already have, and although I respect his opinion it is completely without merit. If you look back at all of the run plays that are being debated, the part of the equation that doesn't pop out of the text is the time of possession. Take away 10 runs and replace them with 10 play action passes (or any passing formation for that matter) and you've just added 3+ minutes on the clock. Now granted, we might have scored from playing more offensive football, but a single turnover would have negated Minne's starting field position on many of their drives. With 3-4 extra minutes on the clock....even just on Favre's final drive, and we might have lost the football game. One interception could have led to the same conclusion. If Minne did score 7, then Henning would have called the final drive much differently to quickly get us in FG range. He didn't have to though, because our defense sealed the win over and over again. When you'e playing the game of what-if's?, there's thousands of ways it could go. The way Henning went led to a win, and like I stated earlier that is all that matters. For now Henne is being taught to focus on making his reads and playing smart football while we're leading, which happens to be the entirety of both games played so far. I just do not see how you can fault that logic...add one INT by Henne or one less INT by Favre and Minnesota wins the game. There was no reason to gamble on offense.
I'm just going to throw out my quick opinion on the playcalling before I run to work. So if you criticize me wait till after 11 for a response. First I think that regardless of anything we are staying to to our offensive philosophy. Last season from the very start, the goal was to run the ball down the throat of the opposing team and control the time of possession. Well it almost worked (see the Indy game, and Saints game to an extent), but our defense blew those games. If we had the defense of this year those are two wins for sure. Even in the jets game at home last year, the goal early on was to run the smashcat. Now while I think our core philosophy is to control the ball, we also incorporate a take what the defense gives us mentality. If you are going to let us run it all day then we will. But if are going to stack the box then we will pass. Remember back to the second half of that Jet's game. The defense gave up the lead and we started hitting big plays to come back into. Also think back to the latter games of last season where Chad started passing 30 times a game and having 300 yard passing games. At that point Ronnie was out and teams were determined to stop the run and force the unproven player to beat them. In those games the plays were skewed more towards a passing offense. Now you say the league is a passing offense so we must adjust, and I ask why? I understand the rules make it favorable to pass, but more passes mean greater chances of interceptions. Also passing more doesn't equate to a guarantee win. Just ask the Redskins. Also look at the Ravens (formerly a running team) who lost because Flacco threw 4 picks. If 80% of the teams or higher were passing teams, then would not our philosophy of ball control make sense. The other team can't beat you if they don't have the ball. Look at last nights game, the 49'ers came back but they left too much time for Drew Brees to do the same. You eat up some of that time and you force the game into overtime. Overall I think we be ok as far as playcalling goes. I think when it is dictated to pass more we will. However, we do need to execute better.
This happens some of the time. The further you get from the original post, the less you remember what the original post was about. There was no way that I was going to reply to your Rain Man post. No way! YouTube - Autism - Toothpick count But since you have said something that actually has some context in this post, I want to ask you this question. What do you think was the intent of the original post? I believe that I made it clear (even with the thread title) that I was being a cynic as it pertained to the critism of the playcalling. Now you come back reaffirming the original post with more finformation. I really think you wanted to see a party when you opened the miami dolphins forum. Then you picked the wrong thread to rant. Because this thread has been all about the critism of the playcalling. Which really aligns you and your posts with the original intent........and I really do not know how you missed that fact. I will address the one thing that you actually said in your first post in this thread: Made up stats? It's not a statistic. It is fact. We went "empty" on three different occassions and the results were 0 for 3. The second part of the above statement is a point with which we can agree. I didn't make up anything. And you should probably refrain from accusing someone of a lie until you invest the time to watch the game again. Because that is what I did - watched the game again. I'll probably watch it two more times before Sunday. Then I will pick another subject to make another point. If that is insulting to you, you probably should not participate in message boards. Because it is here that we do not participate in "ignorant bliss".
If that's not judging our total passing game on three plays out of the entire season, I have no idea what is. Sure, you hid it among a thousand or so words of text, yet you seemed to get back around to it on FOUR different occasions. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, I never said otherwise, I simply stated that it is a ridiculous assumption. You talk about football gurus and people not understanding the potential of Henne like you could personally do better, but you're still not seeing the overall picture here. The goal of any game is to score more points than your opponent for the win...not to score as many points as possible. I think you genuinely posted this thread to offer an unbiased analysis of where the Fins could improve on offense, but forgot to consider the actual game elements other than what our quarterback was doing. Like you said though...my M&M comment was too ridiculous to reply to, yet it has the same statistical merits as your analysis did. If someone tries hard enough they can prove that water causes cancer, dogs could once fly, or anything else they put their mind to. All I'm trying to point out is that if you want to offer a fair judgement and call it a fact, build it with actual facts that support it.
You are parsing and that's fine. I recognize it for what it is - a defenseless position. The funny thing about your accussation is that I said it IN MY OWN WORDS how I felt about our passing game. Personally I think you have placed alot of emphasis on my criticism on 5 wide as you parse my text. You say that I criticize "the passing game". I think MY WORDS show that I have not been critical of the passing game as it has been called - the subject of the freaking thread. But you can bet your last dollar that I was critical of 5 wide. I stand by the statements too. Rather than parse my words why don't you say what you did not like about my criticism. The more I read your responses, the more I think that you want to defense 5 wide.
It's pretty obvious you have taken my words personally, so at this point I will apologize if I offended you. Besides answering your final question, I'll leave the rest alone. What I want to see is Dolphin victories. I don't care if they run it, pass it, deliver the ball inside a bus....whatever. I think Henne is more talented than many (including you) have given him credit for, and I think two defensive games where passing did not play a critical part of our offense has caused many to forget about his late play last season....both the good and bad aspects. Pennington is still a viable option, just without the deep threat, and there's a reason Henne is in the starting lineup. All I've tried to say in the previous posts is that you can not judge a passing QB's abilities based on two running games. His rating was 104 (if I remember right) last Sunday, and if you let the statistics alone tell the story he was twice as good as Favre. We both know that's not the case, which is why you can not read too much in single game performances.
Without any great study and thus saying nothing profound - this league has too much parity. The end result is that from November to January we'll find ourselves in a shootout that matters. Ground and pound will work if each individual game allows but eventually the game will not allow it. I think there is a middle ground for passing in September and October. That middle ground is found somewhere near 25 pass attempts per game. The pass has to be repetitioned in a REAL game for every reason including confidence. There are teams that hide queitly every year at this time of the year with damn fine passing game. But there is no denying that the passing game has to be more successful. The playoffs become alot about getting lucky. I could not agree more.
That's true. I think the best way to judge him will be how he does at the Pro-Bowl BQ competition. Throwing through tires, throwing for distance, hitting moving bullseyes, and so on. I loved that competition. I think they discontinued it though. Oh, and Henne needs to make the Pro Bowl first.
I think he is a work in progress. I do not know how I have not made that clear. I do not think so - not when Henne is healthy. Pennington is Earl Morrall.
Sure, Penny isn't a spring chicken...but at 34 he still has a few years left in the tank if the shoulder holds up. All I meant by that is Pennington can still pick apart defenses at will as long as Ricky and Ronnie are there to keep them honest, but he's not the starter for a reason. I think we intentionally have not seen the full progression of Henne on the field yet, but we will these next two games. Your analogy of Morrall is very well put though, considering that he did what many believed to be the impossible...winning 12 straight games at 38 years of age only to take the bench halfway through the '72 AFC championship game.
