What I have to say about the OC and DC

[Ricky_Fan34]

I know this topic has been beaten to death all year, but I'm gonna bite the bullet and make a thread.

Dan Henning
I really don't have a problem with most of what Henning has been doing. I think he really doesn't have much to work with which if why we see so much trickery because we really would be lost without it. I also think Henning is doing an excellent job calling QB friendly plays for Henne, which is a big reason why Henne has been able to do so well through his first five starts. I'll also give an honorable mention to David Lee, I know he's been putting in some hours with Henne. Everybody on here is calling for Henning's head because the offensive playcalls are so questionable at times, and I'll be honest, sometimes it is. But cut the guy a break, he really doesn't have much to work with other than Ronnie Brown, Ricky Williams, and a good offensive line. I would hold judgement on him until we get some kind of playmaker at WR or TE. IF he is to get fired or retire or leave for whatever reason, I think it would workout something like this: David Lee promoted to OC, and Pennington ends his career with Miami and becomes our QB coach, continues to help Henne develop. That's pure speculation, but I think that what might happen if the siutation arises.

Paul Pasqualoni
This is where it gets complicated. I'm split right down the middle on what to think about this guy. I'm not sure if it's the lack of talent that we have on defense or just that this guy doesn't know how to call a good game. Everybody calls for him to blitz all day, but you know if we did that our 2 rookie corners would get abused. A big problem I have noticed with the defense is the inability to defend the big play. It seems like every time I turn around I'm seeing the opposing team having plays of 20+ yards. This is kind of the same scenario as with Dan Henning, there really isn't a lot of talent on defense. I'd say are only real talented players are Kendall Langford, Randy Starks, Phillip Merling, Vontae Davis (R), Sean Smith (R), and a JT on the dowside of his career. And some of those guys aren't even extremely talented, they are just good young talent with lots of potential. I would again wait and see what happens when Paul Paqualoni gets a better front 7. I think secondary is only going to improve with Vontae Davis and Sean Smith, safety play is below average, but they will look a LOT better if the front 7 gets pressure. I will say though that I'm a strong advocate for Romeo Crennel if Pasqualoni does end up getting fired or stepping down or whatever. Again, I don't see anything happening with our current coaching staff until at least after the 2010 season.

So, what your thoughts? Agree, disagree? And why. (feel free to bash)

 

[Atila]

The WR's dropping balls are not Hennings fault.

But when we get major negative plays because of awkward playcalling, that's solely to blame on him, no one else.

Of course he calls solid drives here and there, he wouldn't be the OC if he didn't at least know somewhat what he was doing. But he consistently, in my opinion, kills at least 1-2 drives based solely on his play calling.

He has also CONTINUOUSLY brought Henne out of the game after he completes a nice throw/3rd down conversion.

Trickery is ok, but this season has been entirely TOO much.


As for Pasqualoni, I think he gets way too much ****. He has not done too much wrong, if you ask me. Our front 7 is pathetic and gets NO PRESSURE on the quarterback.

Our biggest problem on defense is we cannot get consistent pressure with a standard 4 man front, which is a HUGE ISSUE.

We need to get another strong pass rushing DE, another DT, and whole new set of LB's.


If we get rid of one, I'd choose Henning every day of the week.

 

[Ricky_Fan34]

The WR's dropping balls are not Hennings fault.

But when we get major negative plays because of awkward playcalling, that's solely to blame on him, no one else.

Of course he calls solid drives here and there, he wouldn't be the OC if he didn't at least know somewhat what he was doing. But he consistently, in my opinion, kills at least 1-2 drives based solely on his play calling.

He has also CONTINUOUSLY brought Henne out of the game after he completes a nice throw/3rd down conversion.

Trickery is ok, but this season has been entirely TOO much.


As for Pasqualoni, I think he gets way too much ****. He has not done too much wrong, if you ask me. Our front 7 is pathetic and gets NO PRESSURE on the quarterback.

Our biggest problem on defense is we cannot get consistent pressure with a standard 4 man front, which is a HUGE ISSUE.

We need to get another strong pass rushing DE, another DT, and whole new set of LB's.


If we get rid of one, I'd choose Henning every day of the week.

I agree mostly with what you said. Although I think I'd get rid of Pasqualoni over Henning, if we HAD to get rid of one. I'd really prefer to see where were at after the 2010 season.

 

[zodiak]

The heat Henning & Pasqualoni get IMO are rediculous, first of all lets look at offense.

You have a 2nd year QB starting, the WR position is a joke by nfl standards the leading WR is an undrafted 2nd year receiver with 36 rec & 262 yds...your most talented wr couldnt catch the h1n1 virus and there is no TE so who do you think the D is afraid of when it comes to passing the ball? the fact that miami gets blitz like crazy isnt and shouldnt be a surprise.
The fact that they are 4th in rushing is to me a testement to the Oline's talent and the schemes of Henning.

Defense:
Ok again I always like to step back and ask if I was defending or attacking miami who am I afraid of or who do I attack?,honestly here you can have your way with almost anyone on defense.

Lets look at the positives RUSH Defense with Ferguson and a young group of DE's(merling,Langford,starks) the dline has held up against the run,and when you watch game film you can see sound schemes at defending the run.

Pass D(coverage & Rush) here is where I think two problams exisit that have to be adressed to make this team a contender.
LB & S IMO the 2 best players on defense today are S.Smith & V.Davis yes 2 rookies for the lack of pass rush the 2 have had to cover so very good wide outs and the fact that they havent been torched every pass makes me believe the future is bright for both of these players.

J.Porter is done has nothing left in his tank,Taylor is leading the team in sacks with 5.5(projects to 11 sacks) and c.wake has shown some promise as a pass rusher but other that Starks there is no pass rush.

Teams consistently attack the middle of the defense when throwing the ball miami's ILB cant cover and their S play is worse and I ask what would you do if you were calling plays for this d? blitz miami blitzes more often then you credit them and often times the play results in a back or te catching the ball and out running or making a LB/S miss the tackle.

I judge coaching on 2 levels one getting the most from the player, two schemes IMO the schemes are sound and creative( In the 2nd NYJ game miami was creative both scheme and personell wise the used a blitz package in which they had 1 DL, 4lb,6DB they aligned there LB and 1 DL across the offensive line placing mcdaniels at DT,putting Torbor over a OG like a DT standing, they had Taylor & Porter lined up outside the OT's and Ayodele outside & G.Wilson lined up outside and at the snap they ran a stunt sending Mcdaniel & torbor stunting outside with Taylor & Porter inside and creating the pressure with wilson from the outside.
A classic example of creativity with schemes & talent but their is a lack of talent.

One more thought ask yourself how many teams miamis starters could start elsewhere(especially defensively)? or look at other similar teams scheme wise 3-4 defense's where are the strengths of those teams NT,OLB & S with miami your getting solid play at NT ok play from one OLB,look at the sack leaders after Allen at Minn the next top sack artist are OLB,the other OLB cant get a tackle and the S position is in flux not coachings fault.

This team in fact could argue has better coaching then players and that they are 14-11 through 25 games under sparono is a real sign of good if not great coaching.

 

[Kowalski550]

I think I may have an opposite view of most people on here. I find Henning to be more at fault than Pasqualoni. The offense has no identity. Before the season we were sold as a power running team. But we have been a wildcat/passing team many games during the year. And don't expect much changes in the players coming into next season. Our O-Line, RB's and QB's are set. I think at most we get either 2 WRs or a WR and a TE.

The defense on the other hand should be completely different next season. We could see 3 new LBs, a NT and possibly a safety. A lot of our starters should be reserves next year. So Pasqualoni is working with a lot less.

 

[Geofferic]

Our biggest problem on defense is we cannot get consistent pressure with a standard 4 man front, which is a HUGE ISSUE.

We don't have a four man front!

It's 3 man front and it's not SUPPOSED to get pressure on the QB until the rest of the D has locked down the receivers. It's supposed to generate coverage sacks.

We can't get coverage sacks because our secondary sucks. However, if we went to a 4-3 and put one less man back there, we'd be getting burned more often.

Damn near every other time we put 5-9 men on the line we lose massive yardage.

Blitzing is a fool's errand, and that's the problem with the DC. He blitzes too often and then doesn't blitz in the 2nd half except on the absolute worst possible plays to blitz. 3rd and 20? BLITZ?? NO. Just don't let the guy get 20 yards! If this idiot can't design a defense that prevents a man from getting 20 yards, he needs to go. 9 men on the line will not prevent a quick pass to one of the many wide open receivers with there are 9 men on the damn line.

......

As for Henning, I wish he would STICK TO THE RUN GAME when we are ahead. BLOWS MY MIND what he did at the Saints game. Completely foolish. Especially since he was going AWAY from our talent and TO our weak spots.

 

[JCane]

I love how everyone LOVES the Wildcat yet they want the mastermind of the Wildcat fired lol. Who really believes deep down in their heart that the success of the Wildcat would remain the same if we got rid of Dan Henning?

 

[d-day]

I love how everyone LOVES the Wildcat yet they want the mastermind of the Wildcat fired lol. Who really believes deep down in their heart that the success of the Wildcat would remain the same if we got rid of Dan Henning?

Our offense just isn't good enough to win games without the Wildcat. We have a 2nd year QB that's not good enough yet to carry this team and WR's that just plain aren't good enough. I hear a lot of talk about the Wildcat and Henning being partially responsible for our 5 losses but imo the Wildcat and Henning are why we've even won 3 games.

 

[3rdandinches]

Henning falls asleep at the wheel occasionally, he gets way to cute with some of the play calling. We need to get an identity of running the ball and playaction out of it, atleast until we get the right players for the passing game. That's whats so frustrating about Henning, he calls some great drives then all of a sudden we get pass happy or we run double reverse to the QB. We need to remember that eating the clock is a great defensive aid and stick to what works best.

PP just has no real experience calling a full game, we get away from what works I believe because we are out coaching ourselves and adjusting before the offense shows us they have adjusted. Too many times we show our blitzes right away and rarely do we delay blitz. We also rarely try to get pressure in different ways, when we blitz the safety or occasional CB we seem to fool teams and then we don't do it next game.

I do think half the problem on offense and defense is talent, but the frustrating thing is we continue to try to do things our players can't do. That then magnifies our weaknesses because we're putting players in positions to fail instead of to succeed.
This falls back on the coaches again because they need to find the maximum they can get out of players, afterall that is their job.

 

[Canadi-Phin]

MY problem is more with the defensive playcaling by PP. We need to blitz more to create havoc in the backfield to help our secondary. Plus when we blitz we need to jam on the line not give them an 8 yard cushion so the hout route is there. I don't know why we aren't always jamming the receivers playing some bumo and run with our two bg corners and blitzing. The steelers have never had great Cbs but because of the constant pressure they look good. We should be doing the same kind of thing. It actually worked in the 1st half of the Saints game, we blitzed and we create bad throws. Olinemen and offesive schemes are too good to try and rush 4. You need to bring delayed blitzes which I think I've seen once this year.

Dan henning, very creative, but sometimes outsamrts himself.

 

[Ricky_Fan34]

MY problem is more with the defensive playcaling by PP. We need to blitz more to create havoc in the backfield to help our secondary. Plus when we blitz we need to jam on the line not give them an 8 yard cushion so the hout route is there. I don't know why we aren't always jamming the receivers playing some bumo and run with our two bg corners and blitzing. The steelers have never had great Cbs but because of the constant pressure they look good. We should be doing the same kind of thing. It actually worked in the 1st half of the Saints game, we blitzed and we create bad throws. Olinemen and offesive schemes are too good to try and rush 4. You need to bring delayed blitzes which I think I've seen once this year.

Dan henning, very creative, but sometimes outsamrts himself.

Our secondary isn't talented enough yet to allow us to blitz 5 and 6 guys. I think this is one reason why Paqualoni doesn't blitz as much as some would like.

 

[flynryan15]

Here is what I will say about Henning because this is really starting to piss me off! If we run one more draw or off tackle play from 1st and 10 or 2nd and long I am going to have a stoke. I can recall 5 2 minute drills that we have done this and we lose yards every time. Not to mention he loves to do this when we have ZERO timeouts!

 

[Ricky_Fan34]

Here is what I will say about Henning because this is really starting to piss me off! If we run one more draw or off tackle play from 1st and 10 or 2nd and long I am going to have a stoke. I can recall 5 2 minute drills that we have done this and we lose yards every time. Not to mention he loves to do this when we have ZERO timeouts!

When we played the Patriots, he called a draw when it was already over and they were up 10. It really didn't matter, and all that last drive was to give Henne some more reps. In the Indy game, I agree. Pissed me off that we ran the ball 2 or 3 times on the final drive.

 

[flynryan15]

When we played the Patriots, he called a draw when it was already over and they were up 10. It really didn't matter, and all that last drive was to give Henne some more reps. In the Indy game, I agree. Pissed me off that we ran the ball 2 or 3 times on the final drive.

Nope we ran it on the drive before half in the Pats game and we ran it on the drive when we had the ball with about 4mins and down 7. He ran it in the first Jets game and was bailed out by a nice catch and throw on third in long. He ran it against Indy and blew 30 seconds to gain 2yds. We ran it before half in the second Jets game. It speaks of the very problem of our very weak vertical offense. I will ask you this. Do you think there is a chance in hell Marino would have called that play in the huddle?

 

[Ricky_Fan34]

Nope we ran it on the drive before half in the Pats game and we ran it on the drive when we had the ball with about 4mins and down 7. He ran it in the first Jets game and was bailed out by a nice catch and throw on third in long. He ran it against Indy and blew 30 seconds to gain 2yds. We ran it before half in the second Jets game. It speaks of the very problem of our very weak vertical offense. I will ask you this. Do you think there is a chance in hell Marino would have called that play in the huddle?

No, Marino had some WR's to help him out. Something Henne doesn't have and it's painfully obvious midway through the season. I agree with the most part, but I think judgement on both OC and DC should be reserved until we get a legitimate threat at WR, and a better front 7