My Final Case Against The Wildcat Offense and Pat White

[insomnia411]

Since many of you have fallen in love with Pat White and the wildcat offense in general, I decided that I should write a thread dedicated to the proverbial "debunking" of this draft pick at 44, and this offensive package in general moving forward.
I won't take up a lot of your time with this post, but because of the fact that most of you have rebuffed my logic in my contrarian stance towards the wildcat and pat white, I felt that this thread was necessary.

The first point that people often bring up in their defense of the wildcat is the advantage that it gives us running the football. Especially now that we have White at QB because he will loosen up defenses with his ability to throw. While this might be somewhat of a valid point, I say that we now have a stout, talented and very powerful offensive line. Why not get into the I formation, do some serious damage with Ronnie and open it up down the field via the play action?
While putting the ball directly into the hands of your runner might give you a slight advantage running the ball, I think the Baltimore Ravens (and even the defensively challenged Broncos) proved that this kind of offense can be absolutely shut down if prepared for properly.

Now that Pat White is the "trigger man" in the wildcat, people have a new fantastical vision to look forward to in the trickery and passing prowess that can be achieved by such a dual threat in the backfield. My argument against this hypothetical and assumed success through the air has 3 facets.
1. When was the last time a small and weak-armed quarterback who came out of a spread option offense in college was successful against any NFL defense?
2. If we are going to run a spread style offense passing the ball, we are going to require a stable of explosive and talented wide receivers. Which as we all know if we think objectively, we certainly lack. (see Florida, Oklahoma, Texas etc.)
And #3. If we are going to pass the football, why are we going to put the ball in the hands of someone who's arm strength, accuracy, NFL preparedness, and all around skill set pales in comparison to our two quarterbacks already on roster? Let's play power football, put our two or three best receivers on the field, throw screens, go play action and let Pennington pick apart defenses. Forget this NCAA ****.

I think that I have summed up fairly adequately exactly why both the wildcat offense, and the Pat White selection is an overall waste of time and money for the Miami Dolphins. However, let's say for argument's sake that playing this kind of offense does give us a slight advantage in both running and passing the football because of the way that it keeps a defense honest. Why in the hell would we invest such a high draft pick on someone who gives us such a small advantage? With the #44 overall pick in the draft we could have further aided the defense, or built around our quarterback of the future - Chad Henne. You don't spend high draft picks on part time situational players.
All I'm saying is that we should be running the ball with our best runners, and passing the ball with our best quarterback. Pat White is neither of those two things.

Thank you.

EDIT : I'LL BE ROOTING FOR PAT WHITE HARDCORE AND I'LL BE THE FIRST ONE TO BE HAPPY ABOUT HOW WRONG I AM IF PAT WHITE AND THE "WHITE-CAT" OFFENSE TAKES OFF NEXT YEAR.

THANKS AGAIN.

 

[kinglouis2005]

You make great points in this thread but there are parts of it that you have left out.

While you pretty much dismiss the Wildcat after it was prepared for you forget that until then it was pretty effective against our opponents.

That is with a VERY limited passing threat getting the snap and a very limited receiving threat on the outside.

This changes the scenario quite a bit IMO. You have now put a legit dual threat getting the snap ina power running formation.

The same strategy used to stop the Wildact with Brown at QB may end up being a very bad strategy to use with an acutal QB at QB and an actual receiver/RB on the outside.

I dont know enough about the Wildcat to go any further than that but at this point I am willing to see if Sporano knows more about football players and formations than we do on the Finheaven forum.

 

[Dfan06]

Since many of you have fallen in love with Pat White and the wildcat offense in general, I decided that I should write a thread dedicated to the proverbial "debunking" of this draft pick at 44, and this offensive package in general moving forward.
I won't take up a lot of your time with this post, but because of the fact that most of you have rebuffed my logic in my contrarian stance towards the wildcat and pat white, I felt that this thread was necessary.

The first point that people often bring up in their defense of the wildcat is the advantage that it gives us running the football. Especially now that we have White at QB because he will loosen up defenses with his ability to throw. While this might be somewhat of a valid point, I say that we now have a stout, talented and very powerful offensive line. Why not get into the I formation, do some serious damage with Ronnie and open it up down the field via the play action?
While putting the ball directly into the hands of your runner might give you a slight advantage running the ball, I think the Baltimore Ravens (and even the defensively challenged Broncos) proved that this kind of offense can be absolutely shut down if prepared for properly.

Now that Pat White is the "trigger man" in the wildcat, people have a new fantastical vision to look forward to in the trickery and passing prowess that can be achieved by such a dual threat in the backfield. My argument against this hypothetical and assumed success through the air has 3 facets.
1. When was the last time a small and weak-armed quarterback who came out of a spread option offense in college was successful against any NFL defense?
2. If we are going to run a spread style offense passing the ball, we are going to require a stable of explosive and talented wide receivers. Which as we all know if we think objectively, we certainly lack. (see Florida, Oklahoma, Texas etc.)
And #3. If we are going to pass the football, why are we going to put the ball in the hands of someone who's arm strength, accuracy, NFL preparedness, and all around skill set pales in comparison to our two quarterbacks already on roster? Let's play power football, put our two or three best receivers on the field, throw screens, go play action and let Pennington pick apart defenses. Forget this NCAA ****.

I think that I have summed up fairly adequately exactly why both the wildcat offense, and the Pat White selection is an overall waste of time and money for the Miami Dolphins. However, let's say for argument's sake that playing this kind of offense does give us a slight advantage in both running and passing the football because of the way that it keeps a defense honest. Why in the hell would we invest such a high draft pick on someone who gives us such a small advantage? With the #44 overall pick in the draft we could have further aided the defense, or built around our quarterback of the future - Chad Henne. You don't spend high draft picks on part time situational players.
All I'm saying is that we should be running the ball with our best runners, and passing the ball with our best quarterback. Pat White is neither of those two things.

Thank you.

I seriously dont agree, The Wildcat help us a lot last with our pathetic interior Oline. Now with Pat White as the triggerman the DB's will have to play honest defense and we now have many options.

What makes you so sure Henne is the fututre? Pat White is hellbent on proving that he can be starting Qb in the league, and I am glad Chad Henne wont be handed the starting job.

 

[RonBrown]

Pat white can throw the ball pretty far, I stopped reading when you said he was weak armed lol.

 

[ArmyFin7]

I can see your point, but parts of it I have to disagree with. For 1 saying that White has a weak arm isn't very accurate, while he doesn't have the arm that henne has got, it is much stronger than that of Pennington.

As long as Pennington is the Qb we are going to see a lot of defenses loading up with 9 and 10 men in the box because they know a deep out...or anything deep is pretty much out of the question.

You don't need a stable of amazing recievers to run a spread offense. This is the reason Urban Meyer was so successful everywhere he has been and. also why it has caught on in college football like wildfire. You only need a 3rd 4th and 5th reciever that can beat the opposing team 3rd, 4th, and 5th CB...not too many teams have 2 lock down corners much less 4 or 5. It creates mismatches, lots of times you get safeties covering recievers. Recruiting players to run a spread is much easier. You don't have to have a big power back or a qb with a cannon. A mobile Qb with a decent arm and small elusive back is the ideal weapon.

I'm not saying we are going to run the spread offense, but there is no way it does not get introduced to the NFL at some point. The Pats have done it as well as the chiefs last yr.

 

[insomnia411]

1. It's not that we should "hand" Henne the starting job, it's that we should have faith in our pick in him and give him a chance.

2. White is actually pretty accurate but I don't think he has enough arm for the NFL.

 

[insomnia411]

A team needs more than one or two talented receivers to throw out of the spread... That's pretty much all we're looking at here in Miami.

 

[ArmyFin7]

The spread offense is a reason that there are so many WR and Qb busts when they get to the NFL. It is an offense designed to create mismatches against traditional syle defenses. Don't see a lot of double coverage of all out blitzes on QBs. There are generally a lot less defenders close to the line of scrimmage to stop RB's. Ronnie would thrive in a spread offense IMO because generally speaking the first guy to make contact doesn't make the tackle.

 

[3rdandinches]

First off great post, well done.

I'm one that wasn't thrilled with the pick but I can certainly see the merits of bringing him here and running some wildcat plays to maybe get a big play here or there and keep defenses guessing.

But all these posts on how P.White will "change the league", "our offense is now unstoppable" etc... are the dumbest posts I've ever seen here. There by far worse then the this player stinks threads because somehow the rest of the NFL has become stupid on how to run defenses against running QB's. Somehow we have created some NEW formation that will have a "greater impact" then the West Coast offense (that was one of my personal favourites).

The funny thing is some of these posts are from the same people who think a QB needs to sit for 2/3 years before playing but apparently that does not apply to the great P.White.

I do believe he will have some exciting moments when used properly but that's it and anything more is a huge bonus. This crap that he's gonna tear up the league pathetic and will lead to some huge dissappointment. I'll be rooting for the guy to be great because it only benefits us but come on be a little realistic people.

 

[ArmyFin7]

Who else played recever for Texas tech other than crabtree? Hawaii, who plays reciever for them? VT? Fl is a perfect example....why do you think those guys put up great #'s in college and bust when they get to the NFL? The created mismatches inflate their numers.

 

[3rdandinches]

You make great points in this thread but there are parts of it that you have left out.

While you pretty much dismiss the Wildcat after it was prepared for you forget that until then it was pretty effective against our opponents.

That is with a VERY limited passing threat getting the snap and a very limited receiving threat on the outside.

This changes the scenario quite a bit IMO. You have now put a legit dual threat getting the snap ina power running formation.

The same strategy used to stop the Wildact with Brown at QB may end up being a very bad strategy to use with an acutal QB at QB and an actual receiver/RB on the outside.

I dont know enough about the Wildcat to go any further than that but at this point I am willing to see if Sporano knows more about football players and formations than we do on the Finheaven forum.

Actually I think more people are forgetting that the Wildcat only had success against teams that were already poor against the run(outside the first NE game when we caught them with thier pants down). When we played teams that were solid run defenders we had no real impact against them.

 

[insomnia411]

Right, I'll be rooting for the guy all the way, but I'm pessimistic about the reality here.

 

[btk1]

Since many of you have fallen in love with Pat White and the wildcat offense in general, I decided that I should write a thread dedicated to the proverbial "debunking" of this draft pick at 44, and this offensive package in general moving forward.
I won't take up a lot of your time with this post, but because of the fact that most of you have rebuffed my logic in my contrarian stance towards the wildcat and pat white, I felt that this thread was necessary.

The first point that people often bring up in their defense of the wildcat is the advantage that it gives us running the football. Especially now that we have White at QB because he will loosen up defenses with his ability to throw. While this might be somewhat of a valid point, I say that we now have a stout, talented and very powerful offensive line. Why not get into the I formation, do some serious damage with Ronnie and open it up down the field via the play action?
While putting the ball directly into the hands of your runner might give you a slight advantage running the ball, I think the Baltimore Ravens (and even the defensively challenged Broncos) proved that this kind of offense can be absolutely shut down if prepared for properly.

Now that Pat White is the "trigger man" in the wildcat, people have a new fantastical vision to look forward to in the trickery and passing prowess that can be achieved by such a dual threat in the backfield. My argument against this hypothetical and assumed success through the air has 3 facets.
1. When was the last time a small and weak-armed quarterback who came out of a spread option offense in college was successful against any NFL defense?
2. If we are going to run a spread style offense passing the ball, we are going to require a stable of explosive and talented wide receivers. Which as we all know if we think objectively, we certainly lack. (see Florida, Oklahoma, Texas etc.)
And #3. If we are going to pass the football, why are we going to put the ball in the hands of someone who's arm strength, accuracy, NFL preparedness, and all around skill set pales in comparison to our two quarterbacks already on roster? Let's play power football, put our two or three best receivers on the field, throw screens, go play action and let Pennington pick apart defenses. Forget this NCAA ****.

I think that I have summed up fairly adequately exactly why both the wildcat offense, and the Pat White selection is an overall waste of time and money for the Miami Dolphins. However, let's say for argument's sake that playing this kind of offense does give us a slight advantage in both running and passing the football because of the way that it keeps a defense honest. Why in the hell would we invest such a high draft pick on someone who gives us such a small advantage? With the #44 overall pick in the draft we could have further aided the defense, or built around our quarterback of the future - Chad Henne. You don't spend high draft picks on part time situational players.
All I'm saying is that we should be running the ball with our best runners, and passing the ball with our best quarterback. Pat White is neither of those two things.

Thank you.

This is so crazy it's not even funny anymore. Patrick White is an athlete plain and simple and that is why he was drafted. Whether he is a WR, RB, KR, or QB makes no difference. One way or another the coaching staff will figure out a way for him to help team. Some people are excited about the pic and some are not. Either way we will know nothing until he takes the field. It will be at that time not before when we will know if they were right for drafting him. Nothing more really needs to be said. It is what it is. Like him or not he is a Dolphin and I dont care if he screws around and takes the starting QB job as long as we win. I dont care if Patrick White lines up at middle linebacker as long as he is good at it. Why does this have to continue over and over and over? This debate is so senseless before the man has ever even set foot on the practice field.

I know this board is to discuss these sort of things but for the love of God man some of this is just boarderline idiocy.

Let's line up in the I formation. Let's line up in the spread. Let's line up in the option. Let's line up in the A11. Either way I dont care what offense we run. The only thing anyone really cares about is winning regardless who the QB is, what offense we run, or how we run it. Everyone just wants to win. From the front office to Ted Ginn Jr. everyone associated with the Miami Dolphins wants to win and that should be enough for now.

Stop the madness and just chill out on all sides of this stupid Patrick White argument.

 

[dramaMEAN]

All I'm saying is that we should be running the ball with our best runners, and passing the ball with our best quarterback. Pat White is neither of those two things.

Thank you.

How do you know this? He hasnt even put the uniform on yet.. he hasnt taken a snap in practice or anywhere else for this team.. we have no idea what plans the team has for this or any other draft pick.. all this back and forth is so really mind-blowingly stupid and a waste of time.. i guess we all have time in the off season but really.. no one knows what to expect out of any of our new players.. i will say this.. i think you might be right about using the pick elsewhere for a differnet position.. but no one and i mean NOBODY knows what is going to happen until it actually does..

 

[JTBRLZ]

I skimmed through your post, so forgive me if I missed something, but just a few objections to what I did read.

1. White is not going to be a situational player, Ireland has said he envisions White starting in the future.
2. We actually have the perfect WRs for a spread offense.