Henne vs The World In Pass Protection

I think you're losing the forest for the trees. We're talking about a lot of downs where Chad Henne's protection calls sent 4 or even 3 receiving options to go out and run routes against 7 or even 8 men in coverage. He made their job easy on them. You can't just dismiss as "oh well, so and so wasn't good anyway". The defense still has to put a man on so and so. Just like in the Wildcat when you put the QB out on the wing, schematically a defender still has to go out there and take care of him.

You make some claims in here that I just don't understand.

"No deep threat". I'm sorry but that's not going to cut it. Brian Hartline got open deep and did his job. He's created separation, he's drawn a number of pass interference and defensive holding penalties, he's averaged 15+ yards per catch his first two years. Don't blame Henne's lack of deep accuracy on Brian Hartline. He'd be a productive player for a better quarterback. And Brandon Marshall drew safety help over top of him an inordinate amount of time. Defenses certainly considered him a threat deep.

"no passing down RB"...again this just seems like reaching. When Ronnie Brown came out of the 2005 NFL Draft, there were coaches that said his hands were possibly the best in the Draft period, not just the best among tailbacks. He was always a threat to catch the ball in college, and he made a lot of yards and plays doing that in 2007 when Cam Cameron realized his value.

"No 3 step drops". I see this has become popular lately because Chad Henne has noted that Daboll's offense has more 3 step drops but honestly I don't think I noted a severe lack of the 3 step drop in the offense up until now. There was certainly no lack of short pass attempts.

"longer distance on pass downs" Have you actually done the research to justify this claim? Have you compiled the downs and distances to where you can say Chad Henne had to pass from behind on down and distance more than most ofter QBs in the NFL?

I think the entire exercise of trying to chip away snap for snap is misguided, net effect of it is to obfuscate the reality which is that Chad Henne kept protection in FAR MORE than any other QB I have found so far. You don't think those other QBs have to deal with problems of their own, like bad #2 Tight End? Or conservative play caller? Miami was not unique in those respects. The only respect in which they were truly and undeniably unique, was having a starting quarterback that kept 4.2 men in to protect him for every 1 extra pass rusher that came in at him. Everyone else ranged tightly between 1.3 and 2.1, the bulk of them somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0. And Henne was 4.2. That would be like if everyone in the league ranged in full season QB Rating from 70 to 95, and then Chad Henne had a 145 full season QB Rating. That's how outside-the-norm Henne was in this respect.

Downplay it all you like, it remains.

 

What all this analysis, from both perspectives, shows that we have to worry about Henne's athleticism in the pocket, cause whoever's callin the max protects, {doesn't really matter} as often as this, tells me it might be to protect the QB's weakness.

 

Thats why they got Edmund Gates and Davone Bess has been saying they finally got speed and a reason for defenses to play honest. Hartline is not the guy to be your primary deep threat. He can beat some guys deep and has the ability to go deep, but not as your consistent threat. Hes a hurdler and track star, he had that explosion off the line but I never saw that burst when he needed to be able to close in on the deep ball. We can see Henne had awful deep ball accuracy because he did, but lets not forget about the burst wideouts need to close in on the ball, which Gates has.

Yeah Ronnie did catch the ball extremely well 5 years ago. And he had that explosion 4 years ago but how much has he been used since Penny to catch the ball? Thats why we got Daniel Thomas? A player also known to catch the ball very well and do damage in the open?

And if you do watch the games over, you rarely if ever saw 3 step drops, which do play a huge part for receivers and QBs combined.At the 3 step wideouts are allowed to sink their hips and explode out with minimal steps and can start setting up the DB with leverage attackers. Not to say they couldn't with 5 and 7, but its easier to do it in 3.

 

IMO those numbers indicate that having a seam threat and releasing backs can have a big impact on your offense. Those tend to be easy completions (although some QBs do struggle with flair patterns) and QBs that can utilize those tend to look a great deal better. I think the lack of those last year coupled with the struggling/abandoned running game crippled our offense. That seems fairly obvious to me. It makes me think that if you're ignoring that you're just doing so b/c you want to say Henne sucks and place all the blame on him regardless of the facts. Almost nobody is claiming that Henne is a great QB and I'm certainly not, but it is ridiculous to claim that every offensive failing is his fault.

 

I don't think anyone has suggested that Henne was the only problem. Just that he was a problem.

 

That's on our coaches. Get Ronnie past the big guys then get him the ball? He'd crush all of them.

We have our passing down RB we just didn't use him.

 

I have seen it stated several times that we're doomed b/c we didn't address the QB situation (or words to that effect).

 

Nah, people are trying to use the past to project the future with a Daboll, if anti Henne, or pro Henne, folks were smart they would study Daboll's time in Cleveland in terms of Max Protect calls and other formations.

Don't misunderstand Deej, I do think this is all quite funny, but the proper variable, Daboll in Cleveland, is being ignored to rehash stats..from a System that is no longer being run here...they may as well argue over who made the best typewriter, Royal or IBM...

Hmm:

Thomas=Long
Mack=Pouncey
Pashos=Carey
Womack=Incognito

 

you know Raf, that aspect of the game was so lame for us, Brown, Cobbs, and Williams just were not getting it done out of the backfield..Henne throws those flairs just fine for the backs..I'll tell you when I watched Ronnie and one of the reasons why I'am so upset with him is his route running..just a lazy route runner, nothing in terms of making himself small, being explosive out of his breaks, just a really easy cover in the open field..All three backs lack any type of sharpness in route.

 

I thought Henne struggled with those flair passes early on. He tended to drill them, but he developed that pass last year. I have harped on Henne's limitations, but he clearly works and continues to develop different areas of his game. That's one thing he has over any vet QB we may bring in, he's still developing.

I thought Brown and Cobbs ran decent routes in the few opportunities they were given. Brown was our best pass blocking back though so he seemed to be kept in far too much. IMO they should have used Brown as a safety valve on delay patterns. That could have avoided all those plays where Henne was left with the options of forcing it into coverage, throwing it away or taking a sack. I don't like RW in the pass game. I think he's adequate as a receiver. He has short arms which require a very accurate pass and his routes are unrefined. And occasionally he's a liability as a blocker. He'll blow up rushers sometimes, but he also goes the wrong way too often in pass pro. That's why I don't think RW is a great candidate to be brought back in Daboll's offense.

 

OK. But even if someone says that, it doesn't mean they believe Henne was the only problem.

 

I'm amused as well. These threads and the argument itself is pretty ridiculous. Henning's offense plays in a god damn box. It's like trying to win a fight with handcuffs on. It is impossible. When you are throwing the ball 40 times and running it 6 I can understand why the protection is there. You aren't fooling anyone. I still for the life of me don't understand why Henne gets the blame for playing in a bad scheme with a couple of incompetent coaches.
I like your style on this Pod....... Examining and judging an offense that we will never see again is pointless.

 

What were our other offensive problems in your opinion?

 

#2 TE, RB, and Interior OL

 

Don't forget coaching staff.

 

Given that only two coaches are gone from that coaching staff, and the rest remains in tact, how much do you really expect the things you hated so much about concept teaching, play design and play calling to really change?

 

Henning, DeLeone and Saxon are gone from the offensive staff. If you want to include the entire staff then Evan Marcus as well.

When one of the new coaches is the OC, I see no reason not to expect a good deal of change in the things you listed.

 

Perhaps I should have said when only two of the coaches are new. DeLeone and Saxon were replaced in-house were they not?

 

Jeff Nixon the new RBs coach, came from Philly. Dan Campbell was a coaching intern for Mia last year.

 

I don't really know yet. I've watched Daboll's offense last year and the play design was better. Not by a lot but it was better and it gives a reason for hope.

 

Ah, Nixon is new. Didn't realize that. So two new coaches, the OC, RB coaches are from other teams. Maybe Nixon will teach our runners how to execute play fakes. Maybe Dorrell will teach the QBs as well. Or better yet, maybe they bring in a QB that is actually committed to it.

 

What I'm getting at is, Brian Daboll is here as basically like a Richard Smith. Richard Smith was ostensibly the defensive coordinator but he didn't have a strong resume, came onto a Nick Saban staff, on a team run by Nick Saban the Head Coach. How much of his own stamp do you think Richard Smith was able to put on the defense in 2005?

Brian Daboll walks into a similar situation. No matter what you want to say, his resume is not strong, coming off two years in a row as the offensive coordinator for one of the very worst offenses in football both years. In the NFL, that kind of stint gets you knocked back to position coach. You know that's not a strong resume, whether you believe it was his fault or not. No other team in this league was going to hire him as an Offensive Coordinator. Do I know that for a fact? Of course not. But I think we should be able to agree that statement is likely true. He walks onto an offensive coaching staff that was all already here. The only guy that wasn't already here under the old offense is the RBs Coach Jeff Nixon, which is probably by design because one of the things Daboll will be doing is shifting us to a ZBS and you need specific RB Coaches to do that. He's coaching for a guy that coaches offense.

So I think there is a very legitimate question as to how much influence he will be allowed to have on the fundamentals of this offense.

 

I cannot buy that comparison at all. Richard Smith had like 17 yrs as an NFL assistant before Saban hired him and he went on a staff where the head coach's forte was defense. None of us here know how much Smith contributed to the defense in his one season in Miami. It would amount to pure speculation unless someone can talk to Saban or Smith and ask them.
Daboll is on a staff where the head coach's forte is offensive line. I believe Daboll will have as much autonomy as Henning did. To say no other team would have hired him as an OC is also speculation. Sparano has never been an OC, so until he shows he is going to want to be more hands on in offensive game planning with Daboll than he was with Henning, is not anything worth worrying about.

So everyone was there on the offensive staff but Nixon. Big deal. Bush wasn't the WR coach. Dorrell wasn't the QB coach, and Campbell wasn't the TE coach. Ike Hilliard is also new as asst WR coach. That means a lot of guys in new jobs.

 

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...-henne-0612-20110611,0,832003.story?track=rss

Whatta y'all think about Hartline's ''spread'' comments..

smart guy thats very excited.