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Sparano and Henne's time in Miami, does anyone recall?

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by padre31, Oct 9, 2015.

  1. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    Have been thinking a bit about the differences between Sparano as HC with Henne as the Qb and Philbin as HC and Tannehill as the Qb.

    Is it me, or did it seem like Henne had more time to pass, he just was allergic to throwing the ball, into the air, into the end zone, with any hope of it being completed for a Td inside the 20?

    The front office tried everything to fix that, including adding Brandon Marshall, Henne had time most of the time, just could not turn that corner.

    Philbin's time here, it seems like Tannehill has been constantly hit, yet can throw Td's inside the red zone, yet cannot do what Henne did in terms of connecting on deep passes. The OL has regressed since the fist pumper era, yet the Wr's and Qb seem like they have more talent.

    Am I off base on this? Chad Henne starting in Miami seems like forever ago to me
     
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  2. CashInFist

    CashInFist Well-Known Member

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    Henne had decent protection back then. Man was he awful. I knew clicking this thread would make me nauseous. LOL
     
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  3. Bumrush

    Bumrush Stable Genius Club Member

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    Maybe both coaches were hampered by their QB's more than one was led to believe?
     
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  4. Silverphin

    Silverphin Well-Known Member

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    Henne NEVER touched Tannehill's production.
     
  5. Pandarilla

    Pandarilla Purist Emeritus

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    Henne made strides that were noticeable, especially footwork. Ironically, he scrambled himself into an injury. Jake turned into a fashion statement.

    But yeah, the max protection, two tight ends were in effect back then...
     
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  6. Buckeyetroop

    Buckeyetroop Active Member

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    I remember a lot of members that swore up and down that Henne was a franchise QB and argued none stop. Some fans are incapable of being objective. Deja vu.
     
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  7. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    Never bought into Henne being a "franchise" Qb, thought he would be a very good Qb of the 20 Td/10-12 int type

    I'd take THill 10 times out of 10 over Henne, more a case of it seemed like Henne had more time to throw, Sparano and Philbo both had comical timeout errors
     
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  8. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Chad Henne was and is terribly inaccurate. He also struggled mightily to put any touch on his passes. His biggest fault was that he couldn't put the ball where he wanted. In the NFL, that's a prerequisite. That's why Davone Bess stood out--he could catch badly thrown balls. It's also why the team signed Brandon Marshall--catch radius.


    In reality, both Henne and Tannehill are similar in that they don't throw the ball that well across the entire spectrum. Both have good arm strength, Tannehill a little better touch, but both really only stood out when throwing bullets in the intermediate regions. That's the one spot where arm strength and decent accuracy sort of come together. Tannehill's better short. Henne's better long.

    Tannehill is certainly the better QB overall though. He's more accurate, has some degree of touch, makes better decisions and generally avoids the same mistakes.

    Henne was ALWAYS good for at least 1 INT per game. If he was throwing the ball a lot he'd throw 2 or 3.

    Tannehill isn't going to win you the game but Henne could damn sure lose it for you.
     
  9. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    One thing that is definitely similar in the game plans with Henne and Tannehill is the amount of times each quarterback was asked to throw the ball.

    I remember vividly one game versus Cleveland and at the time, Cleveland had like the 28th or 29th ranked defense against the run and we had two great back in Brown and Williams. We lost that...in a heartbreaker and we ran the ball a whopping 7 times. Henne was asked to put the ball up some 40-45 times. Made absolutely ZERO sense to me. Henne was poorly developed..poorly groomed. He coud have been a pretty good qb had the offensive scheme provided balance.

    Sound familiar to what's happened with Tannehill?

    And as I recall, Henne was sacked quite a bit too...having held the distinction of being the most sacked qb one particular season. Same with Tannehill.
     
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  10. Pandarilla

    Pandarilla Purist Emeritus

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    [​IMG]
     
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  11. adamprez2003

    adamprez2003 Senior Member

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    I was here and I don't recall that. I remember people saying he sucked and people saying he neded three years before we knew what we had but I don't really remember anyone ever proclaiming him a franchise qb. Maybe they thought he would be good outta college
     
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  12. Rock Sexton

    Rock Sexton Anti-Homer

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    What "some degree of touch" are you referring to with Tannehill? You mean like on those abominations he calls fade routes like in last week's game.

    Tanny's lower trajectory and generally inconsistent footwork prevents finesse passes. He's mostly adept at throwing low level darts in the short-intermediary areas (particularly sideline).
     
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  13. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Haha...good point.

    What I was referring to specifically was Tannehill's ability to hit a RB on a screen, check-down, wheel route, etc. All those passes require touch and one thing I remember clearly is the fact that Henne couldn't hit a RB to save his life. Countless times we saw Henne miss on even the most basic screen passes. It was embarrassing. In that regard, Tannehill has better touch. It's not great touch but it's enough to at the very least get the ball to the player.

    I'll agree though that both players start to lack touch as you go down the field. Tannehill lacks touch when throwing to his WRs outside the numbers deep. You're exactly right in your description. He's got everything you want when it's just velocity. I don't recall Henne having great touch on anything honestly. His accuracy was just terrible.
     
  14. rafael

    rafael Well-Known Member

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    I don't recall anybody claiming he was a franchise QB. There must have been one or two believers b/c there always are, but I can't see how that would be "a lot of members". I think the most optimistic anybody got was hoping that we could make the playoffs with him.
     
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  15. RevRick

    RevRick Long Haired Leaping Gnome Club Member

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    In the former case, "Yes!" In the latter case, "Not hardly!"
     
  16. Limbo

    Limbo Mad Stillz

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    Sparano might still be here if he had Tannehill instead of Henne.
     
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  17. Unlucky 13

    Unlucky 13 Team Raheem Club Member

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    Henne never had a season as good as 2014 Tannehill. His ceiling was clearly lower. However, I think that if things had broken differently, with a different coaching staff on offense, he could have achieved becoming an average/middle of the pack starting QB in the NFL. It didn't happen, and as was mentioned he had the tendancy to throw bad interceptions at the worst possible time. His line, with a healthy and at the top of his game Jake Long, was always better than anything since Ryan has been here.

    We can't ever seem to put it all together at the same time. Even on just one side of the ball.
     
  18. pumpdogs

    pumpdogs Well-Known Member

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    HAHA!I had one guy on this site tell me belichick would trade brady for henne in a heartbeat
     
  19. Vertical Limit

    Vertical Limit Senior Member

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    Those same fans defended Sparano, Philbin and now theyre defending Tannehill.
     
  20. Unlucky 13

    Unlucky 13 Team Raheem Club Member

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    Never a Sparano fan (wasn't here while he was coach), opposed to Joe even being interviewed for the job, but I love RT17.
     
  21. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    No he wouldn't have been. Sparano's offensive philosophy fit right in with Philbin....throw, throw, throw
     
  22. Kud_II

    Kud_II Realist Division

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    I'll take Tannehill over Henne anyday I'll tell you that for sure.
     
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  23. Buckeyetroop

    Buckeyetroop Active Member

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    There were several longtime members with high post counts who tried to bully anyone that disagreed about Henne. They either left the forum or changed screen name because of making a fool out of themselves.
     
  24. Fin D

    Fin D Sigh

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    Wait...what?

    Sparano's philosophy was to run it 3 times and kick a field goal. Which was slightly different than Wannidiot's philosophy which was run it 3 times punt and look confused.
     
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  25. CitizenSnips

    CitizenSnips hmm.

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    I didn't hate henne. I was a supporter. I'm happy he's managed a lengthy career in the nfl. He had his moments. I remember brandon marshall dropping about 7 tds total in his two seasons with us.

    That said we completely ran max protects and the Oline talent was just better. Sparano never got ballsy in the redzone.
     
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  26. Colmax

    Colmax Well-Known Member

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    There is one similarity between Henne and Tannehill and it's those "wow" throws. Sometimes, those two put a ball in a place that just looks impossible. It's generally a hard throw, but man, every once in a while those guys make some throws with beautiful placement that look impossible. Love seeing it. If they could just harness that ALL of the time.
     
  27. P h i N s A N i T y

    P h i N s A N i T y My Porpoise in Life

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    It's easy to forget we had Jake Long, all pro LT.....we also spent $ on FA guards, and a center after dumping Satele...not that that worked. Carey was also a solid RT. We were a run based team then too. Sparano is deserving to run an offensive line, atleast. As for Philbin... It's obvious he had little or nothing to do with Green Bays success and is a prototype assistant something.
     
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  28. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Don't we all miss Jake Grove.
     
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  29. Serpico Jones

    Serpico Jones Well-Known Member

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    Those Sparano teams had a lot of talent on them. The quarterback play outside of Pennington was absolutely terrible and that's what sunk Tony in Miami.
     
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  30. Unlucky 13

    Unlucky 13 Team Raheem Club Member

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    For the 5 or 6 games that he was healthy and on the field, yes. If I remember, he was injured for the last time in a Fins uniform at the Carolina game I attended in 2009.
     
  31. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    That and the fact they were generally old and slow.

    It's was a general lack of being able to develop talent across the board. It wasn't just the QB that was disappointing, but obviously this is NFL football, so yes, QB is first on the list of things that would've helped.
     
  32. Fin-O

    Fin-O Initiated Club Member

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    Problem is they did about as poor of a job as you could have developing Henne...they turned him into a timid vagina.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  33. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    I was pro-Henne and really I still am....much of what people have said in this thread is pure imagination.

    1) We did run back in those days- HARD! Or did we forget that the WildCat season actually happened? Williams/Brown/Polite averaged 30+ carries a game in each of Henne's seasons.
    2) Henne had a cannon for an arm, yet he played in an offense designed for Pennington's dink/dunk passes.
    3) Henne was very strong on intermediate and deep routes between the 20's, and then we'd exclusively run on goal line situations.
    4) Henne was rated a top 5 quarterback in the league when he went down with injury in his last season. Although he briefly returned after Moore got hurt, he was playing hurt himself.
    5) The line back then was far worse statistically than the one we have on the field today. We got much better with Incognito and sissy britches, but our starting left tackle (Long) was playing with an arm in a cast and a bum leg. That's how horrible our depth was back then....we started a one armed, one legged man.
    6) Miami's "MO" in the Henne days was to take the lead early and try to run the clock out. We saw this dozens of times....Miami led by 4 in the 3rd quarter and Williams/Brown would get the call on every single down until we were behind once again. While Sparano was certainly a better coach than Philbin, this allowed our opponents to get back in the game far too often.
    7) The biggest issue with Henne was that he was clearly a strong-armed QB that was trained to be a clone of Pennington. His coaches failed him.

    When you DIRECTLY compare Henne to Tannehill, a few things stand out. Both had horrible offensive coordinators that used these QB's poorly. Both had solid RB's and poor offensive lines. Both were asked to often throw passes they weren't comfortable with instead of going to their "bread and butter". The only big difference is that Tannehill is throwing twice as much because we're always behind under his reign, while Henne would take the lead early and then hand the ball off for two straight quarters. But in the end, neither team had winning game plans...one couldn't start fast, the other didn't close out games.

    The other big difference, however, is that this offense was custom built around Tannehill and he has much better receivers. Landry is a huge upgrade over Bess, for example (although Bess was great in his prime too). Henne was placed in an offense that didn't fit him, and he still managed to lead over 80% of his starts at halftime. So we're comparing apples and oranges here where the coaching and the philosophies ultimately dictated each QB's future.
     
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  34. Buckeyetroop

    Buckeyetroop Active Member

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    Henne still isn't a starting QB in this league and there's a reason.
     
  35. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Henne has done a lot to earn his back-up role. It was hardly the coaching staff's fault alone. In fact, I'd highlight Henne's short-comings WAY more than any lack of development on the coaches part. He was highly inaccurate and threw A LOT of INTs thanks to being unable to see the field. You just can't get away with that kind of thing in the NFL. It's sort of a deal breaker.
     
  36. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    I completely disagree....Farve made a career out of throwing two beautiful passes and one horrible one. And Henne was a gunslinger, just like Favre, until we literally beat it out of him to throw touch passes...which was by far is worst throw. Coaching is the ONLY PLACE you can put blame when you're consistently asking a quarterback to do things he's bad at, while avoiding the things he's really, really good at.

    I can make the same argument for Tannehill though; his biggest weakness was sitting in the pocket and properly making his reads. So what do we do, we turn him into a pocket passer, dumb down the reads to A/B and tell him that he can never audible. Now, we drafted him for his pre-snap reads and great mobility....yet we tell him not to use any of that stuff. Do you have any idea how hard it is when your instinct is telling you to take off running, but your coach tells you 1,000 times a week to stay in the pocket? That's what our quarterback does on every single play because it's been coached into him to ignore his instincts and fall into line.

    I'm sorry, but it's beyond stupid in both scenarios. We will never know the best possible Chad Henne or Ryan Tannehill because they've both been trained to ignore what they were best at coming out of college. But does that make them "busts"? Not in my opinion...it's just unfortunate since they both had enough talent to be true answers for the Fins.

    And many here would say, "That's an easy fix. Just tell him to scramble more and to move the chains with his legs." But he's spent four straight years being told to never do that, and it's pretty darn evident that he doesn't have much "thinking time" in the pocket to begin with. So the exotic blitzes come, he freezes and we blame the QB.....when it's really not his fault at all.
     
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  37. Buckeyetroop

    Buckeyetroop Active Member

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    Wow. I'm not going to write a book, but Henne did not have the mental capacity to be an NFL starting QB or the talent.
     
  38. Buckeyetroop

    Buckeyetroop Active Member

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    And when a QB freezes at this level in any scenario, it IS HIS FAULT. I'm tired of blaming everyone but the player. Weak.
     
  39. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    You're not wrong HOWEVER to assume that the players are always properly executing a bad game plan as opposed to badly executing a good game plan is...well...presumptuous.

    I think a lot of people would counter your argument by coming at it the other way. Instead of the players being ripped off, it may have been the coaches.

    It definitely goes both ways.
     
  40. ExplosionsInDaSky

    ExplosionsInDaSky Well-Known Member

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    Henne is a veteran at this point. It wouldn't shock me to see him start somewhere again someday. He wasn't a terrible QB, certainly not as talented as Tannehill though.
     

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