I am predicting that Miami is going to have a good season this year, but in the chance that they don't I see Henning "stepping down" from OC. Parcells won't fire him because they are buddies. Personally I have never liked him as OC. He will call a string of solid plays and then at the most critical time of the game he will call one or two plays that either kill very important drives or end up in turnovers and lost points and momentum (see: Ricky Williams option pass int on 1 yard line vs Buffalo last year, or how about opening drive against Baltimore in the playoffs two years ago, 2nd and goal from the 1 and we come away with 3 points). He hid behind the success of the wildcat in 08 and then disappointed last season. He has one year left to do something. This isn't an attack on him but I'm just not confident with him as a play caller.
I agree with this. Henning tends to blow chances with his cuteness. I like his calls sometimes but then he gets to confident and blows it. There were times last season when I wondered if he was completely insane or just flat out senile. Most of it had to do with the timing of that worthless white experiment hitting the field.
I think Henning may be on the hot seat, but if it's for anything it's for the plays he doesn't call rather than the ones he does. Every coach tries to out think another coach. The ricky williams option pass is not all Henning's fault. It's called an option pass because the player has the option to throw it or not. Ricky should have tucked and run, and I think he knows that now. He was trying to be a hero in a non-hero situation, and it got his *** (and us) burned.
you never dial up an option in that situation when you are running it down their throats all the way down the field. run the god damn football!
This. The one that really irked me was the second Buffalo game when he tried to get Ricky to pass it from the 1 yard line after we'd just run down the field on them on the opening drive. He's made a good amount of quesitonable calls, but all things considered, I don't think he's on the hot seat. Yet.
Its because your running it down their throat that expect that play to be wide open. Also the key word is "option". If the play isn't open or not their I expect as did Henning for Ricky to simply tuck in and run.
The option should have never been called in the first place. Why give him an option to throw when you are on the 1? Ricky can't get 1 yard on the ground? It was a big mistake and we lost the game because of it. And honestly, I think he only said it was an option after the game because it failed miserably. It's a good way to direct the blame off himself. I think it was a called pass all the way.
Then just call a run. The Bills weren't going to stop it. Besides it was 1st down. No need to get cute. We were hammering their butts down the field. Henning blew that call.
Agreed, which is why I said he knows he should have tucked it. Henning can't take the responsibility that Ricky had the choice to make and he can't make Williams choices for him. If you think it was a called pass that's your right to do so, but the way he pulled up and stopped and thought about it made me think it was his option and not a called pass.
when you dont have the talent to necessarily do what you want you sometimes have to try to outhink your opponent. When you do that sometimes you guess wrong. Henning knows more about offense than most offensive coordinators combined. He's perfect for a young QB like Henne
I don't think he's that bad of a play caller. I actually think he's pretty good, although he has had some bad spells, which comes from a lot of coordinators. If he is anything close to what he was in his first year here under Sparano, I think we'll be fine.
I don't see how you can completely exonerate Ricky for making a bad decision. The choice was his. Throw or Run. He made a poor choice. In fact there were a lot of poor choices made that game i.e. Henne's 3 Interceptions.
Most people here know exactly how i feel about Henning. The guy shoulda been let go at the end of last season at the latest. He's not awful or the worst we could have. But i truely believe there is much better out there that we could have. He's just so inconsistent in the playcalling and so many uncalled for plays that were called last year could have been prevented. Especially at the end of the season.
Henning does have a penchant for getting too cute at times. No doubt about it and it's frustrating as hell. However, there were times when he got cute and the (big) play failed due to poor execution. In those cases, it's hard to fault the man when he made the perfect call. All that said, I expect the offense to open up more this year. All of the players have talked about it. How they can just 'feel' emphasis being put on the passing game and going downfield. We'll still rely heavily on the running game. But I believe Marshall opens another dimension to the offense. And he and Hartline give them the opportunity to challenge further down the field. I'd also love to see our running backs targeted for more passes. As for the Ricky pass at Buffalo..... you don't call an option play there because everything is compressed within a 15-yard area. In that tight an area (from the 1-yard line), receivers aren't going to be open for very long. A running back doesn't have time -- or the wherewithal -- to see if it's open and then run outside. It's either a called pass or it isn't. It was a terrible play call. You're running it down their throats, you put the exclamation on the drive by smashing it into the endzone. "THAT'S RIGHT. YOU CAN'T STOP US." There was no need to out-think the opposing coordinator because he couldn't stop you and his defense wasn't going to stop you four times from one yard out. Risk Management and Common Sense 101.
Very well said. I still can't believe people blame Ricky for the play. Also as far as the offense this year I believe as well that we will be opening it up a little more but I still seeing us being a run first play action pass style offense
LMFAO Henning is a sly old fox, has more experience and more creativity in his left hand than most other OC's. Not saying he gets a pass, but I feel this is waaaay premature to talk about canning the guy. Heck we FINALLY got him the tools he needs to get teams away from stacking 8 in the box, lets see what Henning does with our new passing game, revamped OL, and Air Marshall (yes folks, that's my new name for Brandon, I KNOW that I am not the first to call him this but I just decided it's the nickname I like the best. Deal with it ) before we call for his departure. Seems to me while he does indeed call what seems to us a bonehead play every so often, what he accomplished with so little to work with the last 2 years IMVHO is just short of miraculous. Now that he's finally got some tools and toys to play with and balance our attack, I think we need to give the guy till the end of the season and see what he does with these tools. THEN if we sucked on offense, off with his head.
Henning called it and the play was garbage. I loved what DS said about it. Eisen trying to be the voice of reason to no avail. http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2009112901/2009/REG12/dolphins@bills/watch thought at the time it might have been a designed throw and going back and watching again it appears Ricky was trying to draw the LB's up so he could throw. option or pass regardless. line up in base and play smashmouth football.
I bought up this exact point in the "first half of the schedule" thread: Then Padre thought I meant some ill will towards White, I further added:
So we have to walk around on egg shells and avoid negative comments towards pat white......screw that.
I'd say Dan Henning is among the I've best OCs in the NFL. The design of our offense the last two seasons has been some of the best stuff I've seen.
and I think with David Lee being groomed for the position it's likely we will see the continuation of the hybrid...
Henning has a #1 WR to work with now, so he is free of the limitations he's had the past couple years. Hopefully that means the end of some of his "too cute" play calls and more confidence in the base offense to work. A lot will depend on Chad Henne of course, and how comfortable Henning feels with the kid making good decisions with the ball. While the offense may be mostly running and going for big play play-action passes -and that's fine while it works, if Chad shows he can handle it, I'd love to see us spread the field with four and five WR sets (Marshall, Hartline, Bess, and Cam on the field at the same time sounds good to me, with Brown in the backfield) against teams that lack good CB depth. The NFL is too pass friendly NOT to have that in your offensive plan at times.
I agree. Looking for a perfect coach in the NFL is an impossible task. Every coach and every player makes what looks like stupid decisions. It is part of being human. For the most part I think Dan Henning has done a really good job with the offense. Especially with the wide receivers he has been stuck with. Then last year his starting quarterback and runningback, the two stars of the offense go down with injury. Plus with the regression of Ted Ginn and Anthony Fasano. The injury of David Martin with neither Nabone or Haynos stepping up in that department.
He does overthink plays some times but IMO its better to have an overthinker than an underthinker like ¨¨its no sin to punt Wanny.¨¨ Hey we cant all be perfect and Henning has been around the block several times which gives him worn shoes ---experience ,and he is still around after so many years which means he must be pretty good .
if I could hold this quote up to an intellectual mirror, it would ring true. however, couldn't disagree more w/it as written if we have a good season this year, it will be because of coaching (tremendous parity throughout the NFL in player talent) our coaching cadre is our strength & hope for 2010 Dan Henning is undisputedly one of the most knowledgeable & creative Offensive Coordinators in the business Parcells, Sparano, Henning & Nolan, all ProvenBulls. got better than a century of top quality coaching experience @ all levels & every position think about it
The only way Henning goes is if he retires which I will not place bets on as I thought he'd retire this past offseason.
I have some issues with Henning, mainly not throwing to Rb's and not using screen passes, and treating TE's as Tackles, Pat White is not one of them. Henning is Parcell's guy, he isn't going to be fired. Without a doubt this is the most talented Dolphins offense since the early 90's, let's see what Henning can do with it as he had similar players in DC and won SB's.... .
like timmy smith who had the game of his life damn good decision by gibbs to start him over george rogers henning had something real to work with. sometimes a guy will have his day dan henning is much older and senile these days
Fasano and Haynos were left in to block to help protect Henne, Ive got no issue with that. I think our screen game suffers from the Pat Cat and WC, you can only install/practice so much. A full off season and preseason should allow an expansion on what we did last year. If we can expand our screen packages, that'll add another magazine of ammo to our attack. I shake my head just thinking about how any team outside of NY/Cincy/Baltimore/Pitt are going to deal with us offensively.
This frustrates the hell out of me about Henning.. I don't understand it - We have some of the best pass-catching RB's and we don't use them?!
Throwing to the RBs works alot better when you have WRs who can stretch the field. If all of your WRs are running short to intermediate routes, then the RBs wont have any room to do anything. Its more of a personnel issue than a coaching issue.
Henning shouldn't be on the hot seat. But that's because he should've been relieved of his duties after last season.
Actually that is a good example of what I was referencing about the talent on Offense, especially the Oline, imho we are on the brink of where the Broncos were in the late 90's/early 2000's where it didn't matter which Rb started, they were going to gain 1000k yds. As for screen passes, well those are more a timing issue than a coverage package issue, it takes time and effort to make them work as designed. When they do work they shred a defense, recall William's 70 yd rac against the Jests in the MNF game? The Jests are the worst team in the NFL at defending screen passes, as in they surrender 10.6 yds per completed screen play on average..clearly an area that should be exploited via scheme.
