Dan Henning playcalling stinks

I agree. Henne should just change the play at the line..... to the same play only without the play action...... unless the play is a pass out of a heavy 1 WR formation during the 2 minute drill. In this case, Henne should just call T.O (no not Owens, a time out) and go up to Henning and bitc# slap him.

 

Last season all I heard was: 1. "the play calling is vanilla and crappy b/c the offense was geared around Penny and his noodle arm so we'll have to wait till the offseason to curtail it to Henne's ability"...... and 2. that "it's restricted & conservative b/c we don't have the receivers to open it up".

Well, it's Henne's team and he's had a full offseason...... AND we have a #1 WR. However, now the excuse is "it's preseason". IMO Henning shouldn't be getting a free pass until he earns it. Get our boys freakin confidence up and rhythm together. Let's have them feel like they can accomplish something on offense.

 

question is, does henne have the freedom of changing plays at the line ?

 

Henning sometimes looks like a genius and sometimes looks completely unimaginative and quirky. I don't get it, but sometimes last night I was sure wondering if he was just throwing darts at a spining wheel trying to see what would stick. I realize that both sides of the ball are being played without showing anything, but if I am to assume that what we saw was akin to our base O and D then these guys need a lot more work.

 

They said last week that when Pennington comes in Henning goes to sleep because Pennington calls his own plays since he knows the playbook so well.

 

This isn't a veteran team, and that's exactly why the pc was so vanilla. Sparano wanted to see certain players highlighted out there and wanted to see certain plays...it's that simple. The pc in this game had Sparano written all over it. Yes, Henning is generally a bland play caller. Remember that he's also taken the Skins and Panthers to the SB with that bland play calling.

Sometimes I think this regime holds too much to the vest. I just get the impression that Sparano wanted things this way. I do, however, think it has a lot to do with our team being so slow to start off, both off of the beginning of the season and the beginning of games. I said about the first game how slow this team always starts out, but chalked it up to sloppy field conditions... We have a long way to go, even with Marshall. There is something to be said about 'taking that big V8 engine we acquired (Marshall) out for a spin just to shake the rust and rattle the dust", but we never seem to do that.

Still, it's preseason. Atlanta is a very good team. No one was seriously injured and we live to fight another day....too early to be all doomsday about the play calling or Henne or Henning or even Sparano...

 

Delusional

 

Henning should have been fired at the end of last season. We need a play-caller with some cajones as well as common sense.

 

I am guessing that you did not watch the game.

 

How about the Jets two minute drill? The Patiots, the Bucs? Vs Tampa we got into FG range on a 20+ yd RUNNING play by Ricky Williams. The Saints drive was killed by drops and illegal laterals, not bad play calling. Though I must admit, play action on 3rd-4th and long is silly.

A lot of this sounds like knee-jerk criticism to me. Henning made an A movie with B list actors last year, lets not overreact to a friggin preseason game.

 

Did you watch the ATL game? Pat White threw a bomb, Penne threw a double pass to Haynos, Ted Ginn ran a reverse pass. Of course there was WC mixed in, along with our regular packages. We were anything but vanilla.

People want this Sean Payton type attack and we don't have Sean Payton players. We have punch you in the mouth players, and lest we forget, its a preseason game. It's mind boggling to hear so much hand wringing, I can't imagine what it'll sound like if we struggle in an actual game.

 

Saints game, 3rd and 14, 4th and 14 . Brutal. Reminded me of watching FSU.

 

. Awful lot of whining going on around here. We got some reps for our starters, no one (important) got hurt, that's all you can ask for in a preseason game. Anything else is gravy.

 

Despite the "terrible" clock management, we're inside the 10 with 11 seconds and a time out. Oh, and it's preseason.

 

Two minute offense looked pretty good vs the Jets last year. And the Patriots. And the Bucs. Just saying.

 

Our execution of the playcalling sucked the worst. We've got to hit our stride and i we're struggling with the most vanilla plays on offense we could be in for a long season.

 

I agree with everythin in bold. Bottom line is, we should look a hell of alot better than we did, and the playcalling is all too familiar. At this point I think we're beating a dead horse.

Off topic abit, but Marshall gave Henne some HATEFUL eyes after he missed him on that one deep play early in the game. I think it was a deep out? EEK!

 

respectfully & totally disagree
the biggest problem w/ the offensive line

 

One thing I can't figure out is why we don't use more spacing concepts. You've got a seam busting tight end, a dominant wide receiver, a quality slot, another wide receiver that has YAC ability and three running backs that can catch the ball pretty well. For the love of God, why not use the talent? When Henne is in, we are so damn vanilla but as soon as Pennington comes in, you see Ricky Williams on a comeback route, we go three/four verticals, we push the ball up the field and the offense is moving. I can't figure it out. I've supported Henning as much as I can but it drives me nuts at times.

 

perhaps you didn't read my other posts about not being concerned until the season starts.

3 or 4 gadget plays out of 65, doesnt "unvanilla" an overall gameplan.

 

Yeah, it IS preseason. But I'm still allowed to not like Dan Henning. At least once this season he will beat our team with his own playcalling. He should have been fired after the Buffalo game last year.

 

just to add how different the mentality is between coaches and fans regarding preseason here is a quote from defensive coordinator Marinelli of the Bears

Part of the reason quarterback Jay Cutler was only on the field for eight snaps in the preseason opener is because the Chargers chose the unusual tactic of blitzing early and often. That's not a strategy Bears defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli subscribes to.

"If you over-scheme it, the offense isn't ready for it, and you're winning (only) by a scheme," Marinelli said. "During the regular season, they'll be ready. (We) want to make sure that we're ready in our base stuff, and that when we do put something in, it adds to what we do.

"This time of the year, if you blitz, you want to blitz into the side of the protection because you want to see who can beat a block. If you get a blitzer (who comes) free, OK, that's good. During the regular season you like that. But right now you want to see what blitzers can beat a block, so that evaluation is there."

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/teams/chi/report


As I said this isnt about winning but about isolating players to see what they could do. Scoring touchdowns is almost irrelevant

 

What does "unvanilla" a game plan then? Keep in mind the skill position players we had at the time, and that our OL was doing a bad job in protection. What exactly should Henning have been doing with those guys?

 

We're fighting a losing battle lol. The entire board has it's panties in a bunch today

 

I love that quote good stuff Prez. Makes my panties ride a bit lower lol

 

Not sure why you would show the rest of the league your two minute offense. I just don't see the point. I'm sure they work on that stuff behind closed doors.

 

I agree that its not just about pre season as henning has made some odd calls. Having said that I think just because he doesn't do what we think he should it doesn't make him a bad o coordinator. I also think henning just likes to roll the dice, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't people tend to remember it more then when it does succeed.

 

I guess it's because it's not just about a preseason game. Isn't this supposed to be the 'final season prep' game for the starting units ?? Isn't this supposed to be the one game of the preseason they game plan for ?? I hope I heard Bokamper on the sideline right when he said they did not game plan for the Falcons...if that was game planned, we have a lot more to worry about...but back to the point, this isn't the only time fans have complained about Henning and his play calling...

 

we didn't play w/intensity & were disorganized
simply didn't play individually or collectively to win
(w/ the lone exception of Vontae Davis)
the Offensive Line is of particularly concern...
they've gone from Orca to Flipper overnight

 

Preseason...

 

Great post Alen.

Maybe we should make Penny our OC rather than the QB coach when he retires.

 

Wouldn't it be better to be inside the 10 with 25 seconds left? Not be so far up against it? Then you're dictating clock.

Clock management has also been an issue for this regime. There have been times we've piddled away clock only to make our way down the field, but with only time for one more play. To me, you get down there and then you bleed the clock. Not the other way around.

But the grander point is that the offense needs to have confidence. To have some traction. Hell, have a swagger. Nobody is suggesting we empty the playbook in preseason. Just that we use a little more common sense in some situations.

The 'preseason' explanation doesn't it cut it in this situation. Not when we've seen the same stuff the past two regular seasons.

 

He had damn well better.

 

interesting. because you can clearly tell the difference of the playcalling.

but this is the mental aspect of the game that henne doesnt appear to have. pennington is on top of everything when he gets in there. henne doesnt appear that way to me. henne lacks command and an ability to think beyond the immediate. (IMO)

the contrast between the two guys is too great not to miss. its like henne is giving a public speech glued to his notecards in monotone while pennington is glancing occasionally and improvising; taking questions from the audience

 

I think final preseason prep is a major league cliche. IMO it is completely obvious that we weren't treating this as a regular season game. The offense was vanilla, the defense was vanilla. Atlanta has some obvious weaknesses, and we made no attempt to exploit them. Henning was just calling plays with no discernible rhyme or reason to them, other than to see how the players would execute.

Nolan called a few stunts and a couple blitzes, but he was plain Jane also. The corners were left on islands with little safety help for the most part, as has been the case all preseason. In fact, Matt Ryan was so shocked that we went to a Cover 2 late in the second quarter that he he threw an easy pick to Y Bell.

I think people are reacting to a "poor performance", when, from a coaching standpoint, a poor performance may be exactly what you're looking for. You want your players to be in tough circumstances that they'll have to fight through without help from the scheme or the coaches. If they struggle, so what? It's all practice anyway.

Now, after a performance like yesterday's, the coaches shouldn't have much trouble getting the team focused for Buffalo. If we'd have gone out and scored 30 points on the first drive like some fans wanted, then there's the tendency for complacency to set in between now and Sept 12, and complacency will be the only real opponent that day b/c the Bills have the look of a semi-pro team.

As for fans complaining about Henning's play calling, aside from the Buffalo game, there's not a whole lot to criticize. Newbie QB, banged up OL, no real receiving threat, Ronnie hurt, defense not producing turnovers or holding the score down much, etc. People want to see the 2000 Rams but where are Faulk, Kurt Warner, Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce and Az Hakim? Henning did a good job given the talent that he had. He has more tools to work with now, so I expect more offense, just not in the preseason.

 

It appears that the coaching staff Henning and Sparano think we are so good that we dont even need to test our schemes and ideas in preseason. I hope there right because if we start 0-3 im gonna be one pissed of irish italian drunkard.

 

When you hear the QB's yell "KILL, KILL, " they are changing the play at the line.