A playfake makes you take your eyes off the defense even longer than catching a shotgun pass. That is a fact. If he doesnt like shotgun b/c it takes his eyes off the D for a 1/10th of a second... its pretty logical to come to the conclusion that he would not like passing out of a playfake, where his eyes are taken off the D for much longer and in fact is even turning his back to the defense. That isnt a logical conclusion in your eyes?
Since you have DVR, do us all a favor, and head over to 3rd and 7 from MIA 43 yd line at the 13:12 mark of the 3rd quarter. With 20 seconds on the playclock, Hartline and Moore are just making their way to the huddle, while Henne is glaring back at the sideline like WTF before calling a timeout at the 13:02 mark. After the T.O. Henne comes out and throws a TD to Moore on a simple curl. But a curl against single high man coverage behind a 6 Raiders blitz where the safety, judging by how he was no where near Moore with his pursuit angle, was probably shaded heavily towards Hartline and Bess' side, and not very deep. That play could easily be where Henne made the "258" reference, which I agree refers to a route combination. But to say that Henne was only on the sideline prior to one 3rd down is wrong. You said it with such flair and confidence I almost thought I was the one losing it. Anyhow, my guess is that Henne made the reference during the above mentioned time out, and since it led to a TD, Sparano felt good enough about it to mention it after the game. Sorry about ruining your attempt to prove every one wrong, maybe next time .
The clock is what changed CK. It was actually 9 of the first 16 plays that contained a fake. Henne had been sacked with and without a play fake at that point. What changed at the 17th pass? Time! After a clusterfudge of holding, false start, and other glorious escapades we were fortunate enough to still have the ball when the clock struck 4 minutes to go into the half. The next TEN passes came from that possession. There would be only 9 more passes thrown after that possession. Only one of which being a play action fake. Noteworthy is the fact that some of these plays were two back formations. I'd feel safe at placing the number at two. So in two of the nine passes he simply ignored a play fake. I think I saw it two or three more times during the course of the game. So for 4 or 5 plays in the entire game I saw an opportunity to play fake but it wasn't taken. The play fake is normally only good for three people in the SECONDARY of the defense. Two linebackers and one safety. Playing the raiders you seldom see two safeties. So now you are talking about only having an effect on the linebackers. They have to cover the two backs or one back and TE anyway. So the fake doesn't much matter except to slow the defensive line. The interception was on a waggle. It was a poor throw in which he had all day to get rid of the ball. He was sacked TWO times without a play fake. But here is my point: Nobody can be cockfire sure of what was said. So why speculate? As I have watched that game over and over I have seen numerous things that he possibly could not want. He could want a guard not to pull for backside protection on a pass set. Henne has tripped numerous times over that guard's fast feet. He could not want to waggle or rollout. He does have a bad knee. There are hundreds of particulars that he could have not liked about ONE play. That was the topic. ONE PLAY. .....and here is my general issue with the armchair offensive coordinator. As a group we have not like at least the past 7 offensive coordinators. Most of which are spread throughout the league still calling plays. For just about every accusation in this thread I have a counter argument. I'm just too lazy to go through them all. The pitchforks, they are a plenty. Dan Henning just called the game of his life. I'm serious. You couldn't tell me one thing that was coming next. They put 33 points on the board. In that game we saw the wildcat that as a group was bludgeoned to death with billy clubs. We saw Thigpen get in and run the wildcat. Show me one person that admired the fact that we got 8 yards closer to a field goal with a kicker having an off day. We saw two babies get on the field as receivers and THEY made plays. We saw Ricky Williams bust a big game. We saw Devone Bess flourish in the role of Brandon Marshall. Yes, the kid was running Marshall's routes and he tore them a new ***. But none of that is the topic of conversation. We have to speculate that Chad Henne is busting Dan Hennings balls. Sure. Right after his benching, he's busting Dan Henning's balls. It just doesn't add up.
I will not attempt to defense play action as a utility of the offense because to be frank - it IS the offense.
Actually, I have already responded to that request. We are at three opportunites to say what play he did not like and that still has nothing to do with the subject. The subject is play action. Now I will give you that 258 may be a play action based play. That is certainly possible. But to say that he went over there and requested no play action on any of the three occassions is most definately a stretch of the wildest imagination.
Just because I do things like this, I'm actually sifting through all of Miami's pass plays to see what, if any, effect the play fakes are having on Chad Henne's performance. Interesting results. For the first three games of the year, the play fake was used pretty sparingly, only 21 of 104 pass plays. And, it was only used absurdly on 3rd & Long twice. Remember what I was talking about with use of the play fake, and abuse of the play fake. I'm not sure they were abusing it yet. And the fact of the matter is, Chad Henne averaged 17.4 yards per completion on these play fakes, with 58% completion, 1 TD and 0 INTs, IF you exclude the two stupid play fakes on 3rd & 10 and 3rd & 13. That's absurdly good, a 109.8 QB Rating. Meanwhile on the plays with no fake, Henne was only 46 of 74 (62%) for 478 yards (10.4 YPC), 2 TDs and 1 INT. That's only an 84.2 QB Rating, which is OK, but the play fakes were obviously producing bigger plays and the coaches were pretty desperate for bigger plays after the Bills and Vikings games (and got them against the Jets). But what you notice is the New England defense started to figure out our play-action passing game with their zone. We still only used the play fake 7 of 42 times, but those 7 play fakes produced only 4 of 6 passing for 26 yards, 0 TDs and 2 INTs, and both interceptions were fully Chad Henne's fault. I believe this to be the turning point where play-action started to go downhill...but the coaching staff continued to use it, including in absurd situations. One thing I'm really noticing but haven't taken the time to write down yet is Chad Henne really getting very poor results on those shotgun little half-rolls that they like to call. If you notice, that's the kind of play where Henne threw the interception against the Raiders, although it was off the fake instead of the shotgun.
It's not the play action CK. It the two safeties. If you go back and watch our games again, it becomes abundantly clear that this offense struggles versus any form of Cover 2. What it boils down to is that their safety plays the run better than our passing game can take away his aggression. Or more simply put: We can't run against Cover 2. We can't pass against Cover 2. ..............that's unacceptable and THAT is why Henning will go.
and maybe that's the turning point for saying "no mas" to play action. It's early in the 3rd Qtr (which coincides with finishing 20/21 w/o any play-action). Plus the play had great success....... and if it WERE a play-action pass instead, what are the chances that we still score on the play?
First Three Games Stats Play-Action: 11 of 21, 191 Yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, 0 Sacks, 0 YardsL, 0 Scrambles, 0 Yards No Play-Action: 46 of 74, 478 Yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, 5 Sacks, -27 YardsL, 2 Scrambles, 4 Yards Last Seven Games Stats Play-Action: 38 of 62, 454 Yards, 1 TD, 7 INTs, 2 Sacks, -16 YardsL, 2 Scrambles, 9 Yards No Play-Action: 120 of 185, 1322 Yards, 7 TDs, 3 INTs, 7 Sacks, -48 YardsL, 5 Scrambles, 17 Yards Total Stats Play-Action: 49 of 83 (59.0%), 645 Yards (13.2 YPC, 7.8 YPA), 2 TDs (2.4%), 7 INTs (8.4%), 2 Sacks, -16 YardsL, 2 Scrambles, 9 YardsG No Play-Action: 166 of 259 (64.1%), 1800 Yards (10.8 YPC, 7.0 YPA), 9 TDs (3.5%), 4 INTs (1.5%), 12 Sacks, -75 YardsL, 7 Scrambles, 21 YardsG Yards per Play vs. Turnover Percentage Play-Action: 7.33 vs. 8.4% No Play-Action: 6.28 vs. 1.5% More Notes: 1. There have been 7 play fakes called on 3rd & 10+. These plays have resulted in 5.4 yards per play with 0 TDs and 1 INT. 2. Chad Henne is 41 of 64 for 458 yards, 1 TD and 0 INTs from the Shotgun, producing 6.91 yards per play from the formation. 3. Of the four INTs that Henne threw without a play fake, two were not his fault. One was the route issue with Marshall vs the Patriots, the other was the alligator-armed tip-up against the Ravens. 4. If you adjust for dropped balls, balls caught out of bounds, balls tipped at the line, and throwaways, Chad Henne's throw accuracy on aimed passes with no play fake is about 80.8%. 5. Do the same for play-action passes, his accuracy is only slightly down, to 75.6%. The big difference revolves around reading the defense, and decision-making. 6. If you strip away 3rd downs from the non-play-action, you have 106 of 164 (64.6%) for 1083 yards (10.2 YPC, 6.5 YPA), 5 TDs, 3 INTs...so the comparison isn't really affected much by 3rd down differences.
Personally I don't think play fakes need to disappear, as I've been saying. But I think given Henne's propensity toward bad decision-making when you turn his back to the defense, they need to not be so liberal with calling the fakes. I can't tell you how many play fakes they called that just really seemed useless and not drawn up well, with practically nobody on the offense from the running backs to the quarterback to the offensive line actually selling the thing, and I'm not even talking about the 3rd & 10+ plays. If you exclude the 3rd & 5+ situations where it would be absurd to call for a play fake (unless you're Dan Henning, of course), Miami has been calling for fakes about 1 out of 3 pass plays. That seems much, considering Henne's youth and propensity toward bad decisions or throws in those situations. I think you call fewer of them, but make them count. You sell them better. DESIGN them better, teach it better to the running backs and offensive linemen. Everyone, not just Chad Henne, seems to be taking short cuts on the play fakes. The running backs set up to block and don't even fake like they're being handed the ball. The offensive linemen rock backward into their pass sets, never even looking like they'll run block. At this point, the play fakes are sold so poorly, I'm not sure whether they average a higher yardage because they're drawing the defense in, or simply because the routes on the play-action passes are generally much more downfield and attack-oriented. And the other thing is, Miami's formations really ARE predictable when it comes to run, fake or pass. Of all those pass plays without a fake...a ton of them (probably way more than half) are shotgun formations or empty backfield formations. They also use a lot of pro formations when they call passes with no play fake. What's weird about that is I'm not sure I saw one play fake from a pro set formation, even though CNNSI says that Ronnie and Ricky have taken over 100 carries from that formation. I wonder if they think that logistically a play fake from the pro set formation just doesn't work. If there isn't a logistical reason for us not to use it, I have no idea why some of the play-action passes aren't run from pro sets.
And one last thing that's worth being pointed out. Since being benched, Chad Henne is 27 of 45 (60.0%) for 393 yards (14.6 YPC, 8.7 YPA), 2 TDs, 0 INTs on plays without a play fake. He's 7 of 13 (53.8%) for 101 yards (14.4 YPC, 7.8 YPA), 1 TD and 2 INTS with a play fake. But when you include sack yardage lost then he's averaged 7.6 yards per pass play without play fakes and 6.3 yards per pass play with play fakes. That's a 103.3 QB Rating without play fakes and a 65.4 QB Rating with them. If Chad Henne is going to continue being as aggressive during games as he's been against Tennessee and Oakland...then it would be better for Miami to not call play fakes for him. The aggressiveness can be exposed more easily on play fakes.
Earlier in the year you were running an evaluation on run formations and which ones were most effective. Do you still believe that Marshall in the slot, Bess at FL, and Hartline at SE with Fasano in-line is the most effective? It's definitely the best pass formation.
I wasn't that specific. It's just a pattern of stats pointing to Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams achieving their best YPAs from the more spread looks. For instance Ronnie's YPA for 1 TE is 4.3 while for 0 TEs it's 3.2, and for 2 TEs it's 3.7. His YPA for 0-1 WRs is 3.6, for 2 WRs is 3.6, for 3+ WRs is 4.5. Ricky's YPA for 1 TE is 4.8 while for 0 TEs it's 3.8, and for 2 TEs it's 4.4. His YPA for 0-1 WRs is 5.0, for 2 WRs is 3.7, for 3+ WRs is 4.6. Aside from the one anomaly of Ricky having a high 5.0 YPA from 0 to 1 WR sets...all the data seems to point still to the 3-WR formation being the most efficient running formation.
I don't know what he said, or what he requested, that is CK's line, not mine. I agree with you that there's no real way to know. I agree about the Guards pulling also. I don't know why Henning insists on pulling Incognito 100 times a game when it's clearly not his strength. Jerry is actually a more mobile guy as a puller, he sucks on screens though. Both of them are better at drive blocking and combos than they are at pulling and finding LBs in space. Henning either hasn't noticed or doesn't care, my money is on the latter. I think your praise of Henning and the offense is misplaced. We've known all along that Henne can feast on man coverage and that he's not rattled by pressure in the least. What Henne struggles with is zone, other teams know it, and that's what he's been seeing ALL YEAR LONG. The only teams to man us up this year were the Packers & Raiders and both of them got torched. The Packers switched up in the 2nd half, the Raiders didn't, and it showed. IMO its that simple. People talk about Henne learning from his benching or turning some imaginary corner, they must see something I don't. All I saw was a Raiders team that completely ignored the scouting report on our offense, and they paid for it. Maybe they thought they could suffocate our WRs with Marshall out, but Nmamdi isn't 100% and Walt McFadden is an abomination. They should've adjusted early on, certainly by halftime. The other thing is that our defense dominated the game, even more so than the offense. The Raiders couldn't sustain any drives, couldn't run it, couldn't convert any 3rd downs, they left their defense on the field all game and eventually they wore down. That's what I saw. I'm a Henne believer, but I wasn't overly impressed or surprised with anything he did Sunday against that horrible Raider game planning. The Browns are a much better team, scheme wise. If Henne can light up the zone coverages that he's sure to see this week, then I'll start getting excited, a little.
What would have been more relevant than the rest of what you followed this up with is the number of times the offense attempted to run on 3rd and 4 (or greater). FILM sells the play action (on that down) more than anything.
I don't know about that. You see, I know that these guys read the paper. They probably don't read the blogs or the message boards but they read the paper. And if one of them is the rare case that they don't read the local paper, Harvey Greene is preparing them for the peppering that will come in the coordinator interviews. One way or another Dan Henning heard the cat-calls about the wildcat. As a matter of fact, he was challenged in at least one interview about it. What did he do? 12 times he called for it and ran it up their ***. Was it called for? Hell yes. This offense runs the ball just as bad or worse than the 2008 team. So I give credit where credit is due. He got heat for the wildcat and he didn't shy away from using it again. A lessor man would have. Heck, I don't even know if the wildcat number accounts for the "Wildthig" plays. I just pulled that number from recollection of an article or interview. If you watch that game again, you can't help but notice how friendly the wildcat kept down and distance along with field position for this offense. Think about it. The only reason you have not read a thread here entitled "reappearance of the deadcat" is because it was successful and we won.
And I'm just checking out the Jets game against the Bengals, because I know the Jets run an offense that we aspire to, and right away the first two non-shotgun pass plays I've seen things I haven't seen all year from Miami. 1. Mark Sanchez himself foregoing the play fake altogether, but the running back still faking the exchange on his way to running a route. 2. A play fake so good from everyone involved that I honestly couldn't tell (nor could the cameraman) that the ball was still in Sanchez' hands. Sanchez put his head down, sprinted into the exchange. The running back tracked himself EXACTLY like he would if he were taking the hand-off (which our RBs rarely seem to do). The offensive line blocking scheme seemed very ambiguous, could have definitely been a run play given the track to the outside that the back was showing. So much of our play faking inadequacy is blamed on Chad Henne...but the problems are everywhere. Whoever is coaching the offense (Who is that guy, anyway? Some guy named Henning or something like that?) is just not very detail-oriented and considering how much he wants to use play-action, he's not making sure his position coaches are coaching it right.
OK I just finished the Jets-Bengals game. Some notes. 1. WOW does Mark Sanchez ever get bailed out of some bad throws. Holy crap if Chad Henne threw this many near-picks in a game, he would be run out of town as the worst QB in the history of football. 2. This is the play-action offense Miami should be striving for. 3. I notice that there were no play fakes called on weird downs, like 3rd & 10+. 4. I also notice that the offense believed in the necessity of each play fake. 5. And you know why? Because only four of the 28 pass calls involved trying to sell a play fake. Imagine that! Using the play fake as a weapon instead of a tag-along to the play call! 6. The offensive line sold EACH of the play fakes. The first two fakes, the OLs blocked in isolation while the runner tracked to a sprint outside. The third fake involved an OL pulling and the runner tracking right behind him. The fourth fake saw the OL actually blocking out on the move as if it were a zone play. What a novelty!!!! Offensive line blocking that matches the QB and RB movement on the fake? 7. On all four play fakes, the running backs ran to the exchange point exactly like they were getting a hand-off, used their hands to fake like they were receiving the ball, and even did a stutter afterward (if appropriate) like they were deciding where to run. The one curious play is a fifth play fake where perhaps everyone knew it was a fake except the runner, because he did this despite nobody else, OL or QB, selling a fake. 8. On all four play fakes, Mark Sanchez sprinted out to an exchange point that was not directly behind him, he turned his back to the defense, he stuck the ball out, and ducked his head during the fake exchange. On only one of the four fakes, did the ball not actually reach the runner's lap, which was probably a lack of chemistry between QB and RB on the track to the exchange point. But, everyone still got the details right on the movements.
That's a great post and I completely agree. In my eyes, it seems as if Henne (and possibly the offense as a whole) become somewhat mentally deflated during these useless playaction calls based on how they look when they're running them (kind of like when you're a kid and mom asks you to do a chore when there's a good show on tv...... and you're so bummed about the "call" she made (and the timing) that you really don't care how well you "execute" it; you just go through the motions and get it done with little enthusiasm. After Henning calls enough senseless playaction 3rd and long..... or playaction while trailing by 2 scores late in the game, then I can see how an offense can become conditioned to not puttting 100% into running play-action at all.
It's less about the calls on 3rd & Long than it is about the fact that the play-action is not coached properly, and therefore the players aren't seeing the benefits of it. Chad Henne especially, if he were to step into the New York Jets' offense for a weel and they grilled him hard on his play fake mechanics, and so he went out there for a game with the Jets, and they called 4 or 5 play fakes, he bit the bullet and executed them properly, I bet he'd be shocked that on one or two of those fakes, he found linebackers and safeties actually out of place, and easier reads to make. But it takes a village. The play design has to make sense. It has to fake to a run that the defense has seen on film before, as Zod pointed out. Currently Miami's play fakes are totally and completely formless. You can't possibly tell what kind of running play they're faking to when they execute a play fake. The running backs don't even fake like they're accepting a hand-off, especially Ricky Williams. Hell, he's prone at times to just go ahead and set up shop wherever he's supposed to, either in protection or out on a route, before he even makes it to the exchange point, leaving either Chad Pennington or Chad Henne faking to nobody. And I mean that when I say Pennington or Henne, because I reviewed the Colts game from 2009 and found the EXACT same ****. The OLs were all pass protecting on every play fake. The RBs ignored the fake. Even Pennington, Mr. Mechanics himself, his play fakes were inconsistent and half-hearted, as if he's not being coached on them at all.
You are on to something that I can't disagree with. I thought this tweet would be timely. Omar Kelly Dan Henning said everyone but the Jets are gunning it. But "the Jets are playing it the way we want to play it." 1:22 PM Dec 2nd via web
Yeah I saw that he said that. That's what inspired me to look at the Jets' use of play-action. It's ridiculously better than our use of play-action, and the coaches can't blame anyone but themselves. It's not the players. I looked at 2009 footage of our offense against Indianapolis and the play-action was the exact same. Chad Pennington was a little bit better with his fakes than Chad Henne, because he's Chad Pennington and he grew up in a system in New York under Herm Edwards that demanded he be good at it. But even he was inconsistent with his play fakes, because it's obvious Miami doesn't really coach it. If you have a different QB, a different Center, a different Left Guard and a different Right Guard, and your QB's fake mechanics still look inconsistent and half-hearted, and your running backs still basically aren't executing any fakea whatsoever, and your offensive line blocking looks as telegraphed as ever...it's the coaching. You can't blame that on players. David Lee, Dan Henning and James Saxon have to go. I'm not convinced Dave DeGuglielmo should be here either. Karl Dorrell I might be willing to give a pass to, same with George DeLeone.
Playfakes are just the tip of the iceberg IMO. The Jets' gameplans, playcalls, etc in general are much better. They run the power, the stretch, the trap, the counter, the reverse, the option and the wildcat. They run them all effectively, and vary their rushing attack based on situations and opposing personnel and alignments. They use play action in RYTHYM, not just at random. As you said, the fakes are carried out with attention to detail. The OL fires off as if its a run play, the QB hustles to the exchange point, the RB opens his arms and carries out the run fake. The Jets are attempting to deceive the defense and force them out of position, whereas our playfakes appear designed simply to allow more time for the WRs to work down field and perhaps slow down the DL. I'll never forget 3rd and 14, down by 6 to the Saints last year. Play action. 4th and 14, play action. Two of the most idiotic play calls in the history of the NFL. But I digress. Henning must go, I assume the Fins brass knows this b/c it's clear as day that he isn't a good fit for Henne and he's unwilling or unable to adjust his scheme to fit the players on the roster. If he's still the OC next year, I quit. {Folds arms and frowns}
