Game 11..Raiders..Rewind thoughts..Henne analysis..

From the quoted above that I wrote. Henning talked about this and it is pretty funny to think about considering what we saw this past season.

 

The only comment that I have on that brilliant piece of information sharing and interpretation, is my disagreement with the idea put forth that Dan Henning's 60:40 split on running and passing is not balanced.

In all actuality, that is the way you run the ball if you are committed to balance. Play calling is situational by nature. The situations that require a pass during a game and a season will usually outnumber the situations that require a run. Note how his 3:2 split on 1st & 10 perfectly aligns with his 60:40 split target. When you have a 60:40 target on neutral situations, I have found that you will tend toward passing that is between 50 and 55% of your play calling. That's balance, in today's NFL. Norv Turner is also committed to that kind of balance, always has been. And I believe Cam Cameron is as well.

That's the most common thing I argue with people that bring up 1st down play calling saying it should be 50:50...if it were 50:50, you're setting up your offense to run the ball maybe 40% of downs total.

The other thing that stands out to me is his pass splits. Out of 24 pass attempts, 4 of them being "deep" (21+ yards) would be a high percentage in this league (17%). That doesn't make Dan Henning conservative at all, that makes him aggressive, as that is really the HIGH end of the range, if you pay attention to that stat amongst today's quarterbacks (which I do). What is interesting there is, my studies found that both Jake Delhomme and Rodney Peete kept almost exactly with those percentages in Carolina under Dan Henning. Both players, Rodney Peete in 2002 was 17.6% and Jake Delhomme from 2003 to 2006 was 15.1%. But Chad Pennington was only 7.1% and Chad Henne has been like 8.7%. That's HALF of Henning's stated goals.

Actually, to tell you the truth...I think this is damn near proof not of Dan Henning somehow becoming someone other than Dan Henning all the sudden...but a nice glimpse of exactly where and how Tony Sparano may have interfered with Henning.

 

See but this is the thing. You have an offensive guy as your Head Coach, former OL coach, former run game coordinator, former play caller. Which of the following is more believable, with respect to these STARK contrasts between Dan Henning's stated principles, and what he did in Miami:

1. That Dan Henning somehow became not Dan Henning anymore, maybe he was too old, totally senile, etc.

-or-

2. The differences between Dan Henning's ethos and Dan Henning's actions, could have been the influence of his boss.

 

Considering Sparano stated that he's against interfering with his Henning's play calling b/c it's like "too many people in the kitchen", I'd have to go with #1.

Henning's life long 19 pts/game also leads me to pick #1, or a variation of it---- that maybe Henning has been conservative and senile his entire career.

 

Yeah I think it all does point to Tony Sparano's influence at all levels of the offense, from the play design in the playbook, to the philosophies he sets forth in his offensive goals and ethos, to the game plans during game week, and right down to the play calls.

You don't have to be the DOING all that stuff...to exert INFLUENCE on it.

 

I think you're drastically underestimating the influence Tony Sparano could have exerted on the offense without actually calling plays himself.

 

I think its both, honestly.

 

On that I agree.

I think the stark differences in things we CONSISTENTLY saw on offense in Miami, were probably more the latter, more about what Tony Sparano wanted. I mean he brought a playbook with him, and merged it with Dan Henning's. He had a lot of influence over the aspects of this offense.

But age does do things to people, especially when you're asked to make quick decisions while being aware of a lot of factors in a live-fire setting like a football game. There were definitely play calls that would go out onto the field that I felt like were just made bad awareness or wherewithal.

 

I guess we'll find out this season, unless Tony was the cause and he's since "altered" his mentality, in which case we'll never know the true answer.


I think it's possible for an OC to be aggressive at times during a game (to where that shows in the stat column) despite being conservative in general.

Case in point: opening a game with a long pass seems aggressive, but subsequently running on 3rd & 15, subbing in a WC for 3 plays inside the 38, settling for a FG, and then sitting on a 3 point lead as if the other team went into a coma could entirely overshadow the few aggressive plays to where the playcalling as a whole appears conservative in nature.

 

It all actually makes me think back to another Dan Henning quote. He was doing one of his press conferences, back when he still had them, and he was asked a question about Sparano as a Head Coach and how he's doing given his own experiences as a Head Coach, could he relate how hard it is, etc.

Henning started out in classic form by tossing out what seems like an insult and then making it clear he was complimenting Sparano. He said that what Sparano and Parcells are both good at that makes them good Head Coaches, is being selfish. You have to be willing to exert yourself and fight to get exactly what you want and how you want it, and he (Dan Henning) thinks that one of the reasons he didn't make a very good Head Coach is because he was too easygoing, wasn't very good at being selfish and making sure he got exactly what he wanted to get. Now, I think at the time we all kind of took that to mean personnel, the interaction between Sparano and Ireland. But now, I'm not so sure about that.

 

Maybe he's referring to Sparano & his players???----- that Tony is more selfish in the fact that he demands more from his guys where as Dan took more of a passive approach with them when he was a HC. That would make some sense b/c Dan wasn't hands on with his players as an OC, which is one of the distinctions made between he and Daboll.

 

I thought he made it pretty clear that he was talking about Sparano with respect to the people around him, personnel department and other coaches. The language he used, being "selfish"...doesn't fit with demands on players. Asking the players to work hard is not selfish. And when Henning talked about his own experiences as a head coach and not being selfish enough, he definitely wasn't talking about with his players.