Totally agree with you about Sean Smith's best technique being bump-and-run.... Hell I've said from the beginning that Smith is best suited to play certain technique's... But you have to have TWO things above all else in order to play the bump-and-run technique effectively... Recovery speed and ball skills...
Sean Smith has both of these... you don't have to worry so much about what type of release you give the receiver in bump-and-run (something Smith struggles with anyway)... Instead, you let the receiver guide you.. but you have to be extremely sound in your technique and consistency to play this game in and game out... Most of all, your pass rush has to effectively get to the quarterback...
The problem with the offense is.... the offense...
It's all based on controlling the line of scrimmage... and Miami isn't doing that. Miami's offense has to run the football and be in 3rd down and short-manageable situations with Chad Henne... no matter what type of defense the opposition is playing..
As I've said all along, Henne is stuck between being a game manager and playing like Penny-Lite (which doesn't fit his style), nor is he able to do it effectively when Miami can't run the football well enough to get themselves in these 3rd down and short-manageable situations...
Which leads to my second point...., when Henning opens up the offense and puts Henne in the shotgun and forces him to be a gunslinger, it's not something they've practiced, nor the philosophy that they've preached to him...
Basically, myself and my good friend Fish-Head dedicated an entire thread back before the season started to the notion that these guys COULD NOT PANIC when Henne struggles and throw the Pennington band-aid on the offense in order to save Sparano's job... he's overmatched no matter who his quarterback is... but they at least have to find out if Henne is the guy or not... above all else.
I'm already convinced about what is and what ain't reguarding most things involved with this team.. the only thing left for me personally to figure out.. is Chad Henne.. and I need to see him play in order to do that... not Chad Pennington or Tyler ****ing Thigpen.
The problems with this team in order of significance are...
1. Dan Henning
2. Tony Sparano
3. Chad Henne
Henning has to go... period.
You forgot about the other necessary skill needed to play in bump and run: good tackling skills. Jason Allen is teaching us that lesson every Sunday.
As for Henne being "stuck," this kind of touches on something I've been going back and forth on in my mind... whether having Pennington as a mentor is really helping or hurting him. On the one hand it's tantalizing to give the guy a role model who's his opposite in every way. In some ideal world where that relationship works to combine them you could be talking about a guy who's a Pennington with superior arm strength (ie, Peyton Manning).
On the other hand you have the adage that sometimes it's not so much better to work on your weaknesses so much as it is to perfect your strengths. I remember having this debate about Cameron Wake this offseason. Pretend for a minute we're his coach. Do we advise him to spend most of his time working on his coverage skills or on perfecting his pass rush moves? Which do we think is going to have the bigger impact?
I think it's the latter. I wasn't really sure at the beginning of the offseason but I was eventually brought along by the logic of the situation.
The notion with Henne is not quite so cut and dried but it is similar. As steady as he played in Michigan's ho-hum offense, which was so similar to pro-offenses in it's reliance on the running game and play action it made him easy to spot as a relatively sure thing as at least a competent QB, it's impossible to ignore his best game as a collegian was his final bowl game against Florida, where he orchestrated a wide open offense and gashed a Florida defense full of multiple pro-ready prospects. He took all kinds of chances in that game, and succeeded against that defense because he's blessed with great arm strength, bravery and underrated accuracy.
This idea: to Pennington-ify his game... it's a tantalizing prospect to say the least. But at the end of the day we might be trying to hit too much of a home run. Every quarterback in the league has basic and unfixable flaws. Any knowledgeable fan can point them out without any trouble. Henne certainly has his. I don't go along with the opinion that just because he's awkward and slow in front of the camera he's a dullard. Being that way in public certainly never slowed down Joe Montana. But I don't think even in an idealized situation we're talking about a guy who's going to go out there and beat a defense into submission with his mind, the way Drew Brees or Peyton Manning can.
I still go back and forth on this... on what exactly to do with him. Thankfully I'm not a coach. But I'm certainly concerned we could be breeding the aggressiveness out of his game, which given his natural daring and arm strength
should be a great equalizer for his flaws. It's certainly got to be confusing for him to be coached to be one quarterback on first and second down and on third and short, and then on third and long, when you really need an elite QB -- and where Chad Pennington certainly has very little ground to be authoritative -- he's put in a situation where he has to cut it loose and that's simply not what they spend a lot of time on.
As for the notion that we have to get rid of Henning, I dismiss that out of hand. The offensive coordinator is the easiest person on the team to scapegoat, and their firing generally accomplishes nothing. Take a look at San Francisco, who just jettisoned their long tenured OC. Anyone want to make a bet whether that offense improves appreciably? You and hoops are too well informed to use the term I'd generally reserve for the bumpkins who resort to this knee jerk opinion but the basic idea is I consider it to me poor statesmanship, for lack of a better word. The precedent here is well formed and long standing.
Henning has proved his worth to me. Look what his loss did to the Carolina Panthers and the performance of Jake Delhomme. Look at the basic stats and points per game his offenses have put up. The guy basically runs a simple offense, I agree, but he does so out of unpredictable formations and personnel groups and 95% of the time calls an intelligent, slightly off kilter kind of game. Sometimes he outsmarts himself but I'll take that every day over a blockhead like Kippy Brown.
I'll never understand the Wildcat call on third and six but he also made a beautifully timed screen pass call to Ricky Williams for a TD. We were driving against cover 2 and he anticipated the moment when Belichick would lose patience and go for the jugular brilliantly. I've seen the Dolphins waste that kind of opportunity too many times to watch it seized and not appreciate it.
