Just a question here......does anyone feel any less about Pennington, as the franchise quarterback for this club, after that pathetic performance?
I'm just throwing this out there. I mean, the game was on the line and it was obviously his worst performance of the year and it couldn't come at a worse time....although, the Ravens came to play, for sure.

He's our QB in 2009 no doubt, but come 2010 Chad Henne (if he is the real deal) should be the starter.

Does anyone hold Pennington responsible for that loss, or do we just look at it that the Ravens were the better team all around......they did their homework and they came to play.

He had alot to do with it. He was forcing throws, but you can say we still had chances. Their D was amazing but if we could have just kept the game close we had a shot. Their D was exhausted by the end.

Our turnovers killed us, you dont commit 6 turnovers in a playoff game and win. Just doesnt happen.

It was that kind of performance that got him exiled from New York.
A weak arm and minimal scrambling skills will never match up against a top 5 defense. And unfortunately, you usually see the better defenses in the playoffs.
Chad really benefitted from a 5th place schedule this year. Next year will be a completely different story.

I wanted to wait a day before posting due to the emtional turbulance of that game. But here we go:

Without Chad Pennington, we don't even play yesterday. Maybe 8-8 or worse on the season. Going into the game, I thought we truly should win that game. But they shut down the run, we were short on receivers, and our o-line was getting beat on almost every down.

Our defense was lights-out yesterday. With the field position Baltimore had all game long, it should have been a blowout. But we had a chance up to the Ginn reverse play that took us out of fieldgoal range.

I think the gameplan should have been different. We should have spread the field out like we in the second half.

Either way, it was a great year. Yesterday hurt, but for 11 sundays, I was having a blast. Next year...Complete dominance of the AFC East

Pennington provides the stability that this team needs at this point, to develop the supporting cast. When Henne gets his chance to play he will be ready and hungrey. I love the strides that the team has made this season in shedding the stench of last season.(imagine being a Detroit fan). I trust the FO and the coaches to do what needs to be done to improve. September and opening day are just around the corner. Can't wait!!

Good post Sig.

I never envisioned Pennington as a "franchise" quarterback, but merely a bridge to Henne's development, and hopefully his mentor and our backup after that.

I've always kinda thought of Chad as the bridge to the next level, doubt he'll be the starter when we are serious contenders again. No dis-respect in saying that I just think he has limited skills and is injury prone. O-line didnt help him much yesterday but he was forcing things

Not Chads fault. He had to force something to happen as the OL did not block worth a crap. Ravens were all over Chad right from the snap. Anytime they wanted to get pressure they did. Also we had no running game to speak of. Shows how much farther we need to go with the OL.

We had a great season over all. Now we really have something to build on. More OL players and depth, WR inprovement and of coarse improvement on D line and backers. We really need someone that can put pressure on the QB.

Hate the loss but not supprised. It's been a fun year.

Chad is the reason we got as far as we did..no doubt about it.

yesterday he forced a couple throws, and had some 'bad' throws...no doubt about it.

If we had a better running game ( Interior Lineman) Chad might not have been trying to make something happen.

That was a winnable game. 1 pick was a great play by Reed. The other 3 were on Chad ( 1 with Ted's help). The fumble on the reverse also killed us.

Chad should be the starter until Henne wins it from him.

What about the calls that were not made, Roll taking out Ginn on the pass Reed intercepted ?? What about the numerous late hits on Pennington ALA Suggs,Leohnard,and Lewis, Oh yeah that is part of the Game ? I thought that the home team was suppose to have an edge, Oh yeah it was Ed Hockuley's squad. They didn'nt miss to many calls this year....Yeah the Phins got beat, but it's one thing to be beat, but the cheap shots that were not getting the 2nd hand looks during the tv coverage well. I all can say is I hope the TITANS kick the CRAP out of you pathetic cheap shot artists, ALA-Oakland in the 80's, if not they will surely not get past the Steelers.....Remember Jim Harbaugh what goes around comes back around.

Were the Phins out-played or out-matched by the Ravens or did Miami lose this game all by themselves.
...and some of the play-calling was horrendous.

I wouldn't fault pennington much. The OL was getting manhandled, and almost no receivers to work with. Bess injured his thumb, camarillo out for the season. London is a giants castoff, wilford is a bust.

We need to draft a receiver and a top free agent signee.

samsam3738 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wouldn't fault pennington much. The OL was
> getting manhandled, and almost no receivers to
> work with. Bess injured his thumb, camarillo out
> for the season. London is a giants castoff,
> wilford is a bust.
>
> We need to draft a receiver and a top free agent
> signee.

Agreed. After ILB, WR is absolutely our biggest need. I wouldn't mind us drafting a WR in the first round and an ILB in the 2nd...if the talent just works out that way. Zach Thomas we a 5th rounder, so we can get a stud ILB even in the 2nd.

I think we can win with the current DBs we have...Just need a better pass rush. Flacco had the whole day to throw the football. Not that it mattered much because our defense played really good. Flaco didn't do much to win the game. Our offense made the mistakes.

To improve this team....Plain and simple.....

1. We need a better pass rush on defense.

2. We need better receivers.

_______________________________________________________________________

We have 3 receivers who we will keep.

Ginn, bess and camarillo. We need a couple more threats to compliment these 3.

Better pass rush and better receivers will make us contenders next year.

samsam3738 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We have 3 receivers who we will keep.
>
> Ginn, bess and camarillo. We need a couple more
> threats to compliment these 3.
>
I'm still wondering what happens if we pick up a legit #1 WR. Bess and Camarillo are too valuable to have to share their current passes with yet ANOTHER WR. If a new guy takes passes away from Ginn, then is Ginn even worth keeping?

Ginn is under contract...5 yr. 20 mil with 3 years left. No one wants to pay him that much so a trade is out and we can't cut him yet.

I am really curious to see how Todd Lowber developes...he has size and athleticism and is probably the fastest man in the NFL. If he developes, we may not need a WR. Wishfull thinkin but....

.....................................................................................
“I'm here" You're welcome!" - Kenny Powers

eesti Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ginn is under contract...5 yr. 20 mil with 3 years
> left. No one wants to pay him that much so a
> trade is out and we can't cut him yet.
>
> I am really curious to see how Todd Lowber
> developes...he has size and athleticism and is
> probably the fastest man in the NFL. If he
> developes, we may not need a WR. Wishfull thinkin
> but....

Yeah, well, Renaldo Nehemiah was superfast too, but he was no Jerry Rice!

anyone who thought that chad was the reason we lost that game is a fool. The reason we lost that game is our inability to run the football and ronnie brown dancing with the stars... Chad did all he could the ravens are just flat out a better team than us. Think about this, the ravens went 13-3 two years ago and had a disappointing season last year but they still have that 13 win core of guys. They have guys that have been together longer and we changed what 29 guys out of a 53 man roster, i mean come on. We played our asses off and we have nothing to hang our head about. We came from the ashes to win the division, what an accomplishment.

And FYI those that think WR or ILB is our top need, i got news for you, ed reed broke that game open with that int return of a td. If we can get a ball hawking FS with half of his skills we can go a long way...

If we can get our hands on that caliber of FS we take him first. end of story.

montequi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> eesti Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Ginn is under contract...5 yr. 20 mil with 3
> years
> > left. No one wants to pay him that much so a
> > trade is out and we can't cut him yet.
> >
> > I am really curious to see how Todd Lowber
> > developes...he has size and athleticism and is
> > probably the fastest man in the NFL. If he
> > developes, we may not need a WR. Wishfull
> thinkin
> > but....
>
> Yeah, well, Renaldo Nehemiah was superfast too,
> but he was no Jerry Rice!

I'm just saying...it is intriguing. Remember Willie Gault? He never tore up the yards but he played on a running team with Walter Peyton and you can't say he was not successfull.

and there is only one Jerry Rice!

.....................................................................................
“I'm here" You're welcome!" - Kenny Powers

The OL was getting manhandled guys. It happens when you have two players on your starting OL out for the year and you have two journey men playing in their place.

Yes we could barely get away against weaker teams as we won 5 straight against the likes of San Fran, seatle, the raiders, Kansas City etc............but yesterday we were going against one of the better defenses in the NFL.

When you are going against one of the best DLs in football, if not the best.....You better be at full strengh or at least have decent backups......or else you do not stand a chance. And thats what happened against baltimore.

We had no depth. You all knew that.

I do not remember who said it..........But it read something like this..............


Quote: "We made chicken salad out of chicken $H!T this year:



And its the truth.......

I work in Bmore and right now my work area is covered w/ Raven's stuff. I told the folks Friday I was just happy as a Phin fan to be in the playoffs. Our team exceeded expectations this year but had holes which the Ravens D magnificiently exploited. I swear the Ravens D could play a game without coaches they are that disciplined.

Pennington did the best he could, where would we be without him this year? Like a few of our other starters he needs better production around him to make him better. He is far more a part of the solution than a part of the problem.

tsstamper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I swear the Ravens D could play a game without
> coaches they are that disciplined.
>
> This begins and ends with Ray Lewis. I will
> probably be banned for life from commenting on the
> Phins in the future, but that is why I think he is
> and was a better MLB than Zach.

In their prime, Zach was better. Thing is Ray is bigger and more durable. He's also surrounded by better talent than Zach was for the last few seasons. So, if you look at consistency and longevity, Ray is better. If you look at career stats, Zach is clearly better.

Chad had a horrible game. He had a great year, but he made terrible decisions yesterday. When you throw into double coverage with Ed Reed on one side, while you have single coverage on the other side, it's not a QB trying to make something happen, it's a QB making a bad decision. And he made 3 bad decisions yesterday, and that's really unacceptable from a veteran QB whose specialty is taking care of the ball.

The running game and the o-line play are a recurring theme. Now, Alleman and Ndukwe were more or less awful. Alleman just got ate alive yesterday. The good news is that these guys are not counted on as starters if everyone is healthy. But, when you watch our running game, do you notice how it seems like the defense has way too many players? You know why that is? Because every team plays us with 8 or 9 guys within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. Go back, watch the games, and count them. They are there every play. The reason they are there is because no team is scared of our passing game. They just don't believe that we can beat them with big plays. All year long, Chad Pennington only completed 11 passes that were thrown more than 20 yards downfield. That's less than one per game. Heck, Chad only completed 86 passes thrown more than 10 yards downfield. Compare that to the 235 passes that he completed either behind the line of scrimmage or within 10 yards of the LOS. Now, if you were a defensive coordinator, wouldn't you put 8 or 9 in the box against us?

This is a reality we have to accept. It's not all Chad's fault. Some of it is that our receivers are not very good at getting open downfield. I love Davone Bess, but he caught no passes thrown beyond 20 yards, and 30% of his catches came behind the line of scrimmage. We just are not able to consistently make plays downfield. Until we can do that, the running game and o-line will continue to struggle. Living in New England, I get to hear all the Pats talk. I always remember this anecdote from the Pats. They said that when they played Pennington with the Jets, there were entire parts of the field they would ignore defensively because they knew he couldn't get the ball there. If the offense was lined up on the left hash, they would treat the right hash as the sideline, because they weren't afraid of Pennington being able to throw the ball that far effectively. You have to think about that, and what it means to an offense, and what it means to opposing defenses.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2009 03:38PM by dolfanmark.

fxxkthebills Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just a question here......does anyone feel any
> less about Pennington, as the franchise
> quarterback for this club, after that pathetic
> performance?

Not at all. Pennington is a high quality QB, a pro's pro, and way better than anyone else they have. Even with the concerns about being able to stretch defenses, I feel he can be a Super Bowl QB for the Dolphins...the two main reasons being a) His leadership skills, and b) his hyper-accurate arm.

Yeah, Pennington tried to do too much against that Ravens D. I didn't like the gameplan myself...would've preferred to see the Dolphins trust their D more versus that rookie QB and let the offense try to win a very low scoring game by using their punter more.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2009 03:53AM by cshashaty.

Chad is a good QB and a good field general, but he has limitations (as dolfanmark pointed out above). Can he win in the playoffs? Yes, he can; but the circumstances have to be right. If the rest of the team is good enough for our QB to basically manage the game and distribute short passes then Chad can do that. He'll make good decisions and manage the game as well as anyone. However, we can't expect him to win in the playoffs if he regularly has to throw intermediate and deep passes. That's just not his strength.

The upside of Chad's game is that, in most cases, he plays mistake free football. Sunday was obviously an exception to that. The downside of his game is that really good defenses will take away the run and the short pass by crowding the line of scrimmage. In that scenario, if he makes a couple of mistakes (as he did on Sunday) and we get behind by a couple of scores, he is forced to try to do things that he is just not that good at.

The threat of the deep ball is just such a huge weapon. Look at the Ravens and the Titans. Right now, their QBs are nothing special. Flacco is very good for a rookie, but he is not a great NFL QB at this point in time. However, he has a big arm - which defenses have to respect. When he lines up behind center the deep ball is a real threat. When Pennington is in the game great defenses do not respect our ability to go deep, so they take away the run and the short passes.

Bottom line. We have a good team, and I think Chad is a good caretaker at the QB position. If we had the Ravens' defense and better blocking on the o-line, I am sure that we could win a Super Bowl with Chad. But that is not likely to happen next year. In order to win a championship, we may need a guy who can throw the deep ball and win with his arm - not just his head. At some point, Henne's ability to throw deep and prevent defenses from crowding the line of scrimmage will outweigh the experience and intangibles that Pennington brings to the game. That probably won't happen in 2009; but I hope it happens in 2010. When it does happen it will increase our ability to win in the playoffs.