Ok guys, I will play your scenario and you tell me which one was better for the team. Sparano calls the Hail mary, Hartline catches the ball and we win. The teams confidence would be shaken, and they would feel like we got lucky and won on a hail mary.

Or the scenario which played out, the coach had confidence in his team and both the offense, defense and special teams came together in OT to win the game as a team...No one handed that victory to us and luck was not involved in that win and every player knows it.

Our team, after sitting 13 days as a double loser to division opponents, needed the intangibles. The team is going into the Steelers game with more confidence and solidarity because of the coach. You all must realize the intangibles that go into being a great team in the NFL and having a leader who believes in you. We just made a great step, the Hail Mary, at best might have gotten a win and defintely would not have improved the team.. It is a nobrainer, and Sparano is a great leader by making the call he made. Sorry if some of you guys dont see it. Because it is and was a strong statement.

And to think some here still question this play and say it wasn't even the right play at that particular time.

WTF.............Live with it and ENJOY THE WIN.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2010 11:31AM by samsam3738.

Leon In Denver Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ChyrenB. You can't be serious. The TE screen was a
> great call and the play did not almost blow up.
> What are you looking at. I guess you mean the fact
> that Henne had pressure. Well that is the way a
> screen is suppose to work. You let the pressure
> come in then get the ball out at the last second
> with a blocker in front. Great play and great
> call. Worked exactly as drawn up.
>
> Why don't give credit where credit is due? That
> was the call of the game.

RESPONSE: The play almost blew up because Henne almost threw the ball away. Yes, of course every screen relies on the pressure being sucked in but like I said, Henne was the worst of our three quarterbacks to put that play in the hands of and had he thrown the ball in the stands, you'd have all the Henne haters calling for him to be benched and you yourself and the Henning defenders would be blaming everything on him. But putting a play in the hands of the player you have to execute the play IS PART OF WHETHER PLAY CALLING IS GOOD OR BAD.

Secondly, hell yes, it barely succeeded because the defender on the tight end had outside contain and instead of following the tight end, he joined in for the rush. After the tight end blocked him and released, had he followed the tight end, Henne would have had to go to plan B.

ChyrenB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Leon In Denver Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > ChyrenB. You can't be serious. The TE screen was
> a
> > great call and the play did not almost blow up.
> > What are you looking at. I guess you mean the
> fact
> > that Henne had pressure. Well that is the way a
> > screen is suppose to work. You let the pressure
> > come in then get the ball out at the last
> second
> > with a blocker in front. Great play and great
> > call. Worked exactly as drawn up.
> >
> > Why don't give credit where credit is due? That
> > was the call of the game.
>
> RESPONSE: The play almost blew up because Henne
> almost threw the ball away. Yes, of course every
> screen relies on the pressure being sucked in but
> like I said, Henne was the worst of our three
> quarterbacks to put that play in the hands of and
> had he thrown the ball in the stands, you'd have
> all the Henne haters calling for him to be benched
> and you yourself and the Henning defenders would
> be blaming everything on him. But putting a play
> in the hands of the player you have to execute the
> play IS PART OF WHETHER PLAY CALLING IS GOOD OR
> BAD.
>
> Secondly, hell yes, it barely succeeded because
> the defender on the tight end had outside contain
> and instead of following the tight end, he joined
> in for the rush. After the tight end blocked him
> and released, had he followed the tight end, Henne
> would have had to go to plan B.


The play was on 1st and 10 on the 22 yard line with 5:29 left, even if he had thrown it away, no big deal, he still had 2 more downs to get a 1st. You are acting as if it was 4th down with one second left and he took this huge risk. Either way, the play was a brilliant call because of its success. What should we have done, not scored a TD and been more conservative with the play calling on every down, and then it would be good? It seems Henning, Henne and the rest of the coaches and players are damned if they do and damned if they dont, with what some of you guys are saying?

> ChyrenB Wrote:
> > RESPONSE: The play almost blew up because
> Henne
> > almost threw the ball away. Yes, of course
> every
> > screen relies on the pressure being sucked in
> but
> > like I said, Henne was the worst of our three
> > quarterbacks to put that play in the hands of
> and
> > had he thrown the ball in the stands, you'd
> have
> > all the Henne haters calling for him to be
> benched
> > and you yourself and the Henning defenders
> would
> > be blaming everything on him. But putting a
> play
> > in the hands of the player you have to execute
> the
> > play IS PART OF WHETHER PLAY CALLING IS GOOD OR
> > BAD.
> >
> > Secondly, hell yes, it barely succeeded because
> > the defender on the tight end had outside
> contain
> > and instead of following the tight end, he
> joined
> > in for the rush. After the tight end blocked
> him
> > and released, had he followed the tight end,
> Henne
> > would have had to go to plan B.
Crowder52 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The play was on 1st and 10 on the 22 yard line
> with 5:29 left, even if he had thrown it away, no
> big deal, he still had 2 more downs to get a 1st.
> You are acting as if it was 4th down with one
> second left and he took this huge risk. Either
> way, the play was a brilliant call because of its
> success. What should we have done, not scored a TD
> and been more conservative with the play calling
> on every down, and then it would be good? It seems
> Henning, Henne and the rest of the coaches and
> players are damned if they do and damned if they
> dont, with what some of you guys are saying?

RESPONSE: You are missing the point, Crowder. The point is not that it was a bad play, a badly designed play, or something that should have been criticized in and of itself.

Defender of Henning are using that play to say that he is such a genius that either he did not engage in an afternoon OF ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE PLAY CALLING or that WE SHOULD JUST IGNORE that afternoon of otherwise absolutely horrible play calling because he called this GREAT AND INGENUOUS play that must have been sent down by the Gods from Olympus.

My point was 1) it was not that big of a deal to call the play; 2) it was risky running that play with Henne who does not have that good of a touch and is a rifler who we are lucky did not rifle the ball away (and there is no stronger supporter of Henne on this board than me and no bigger critic of Pennington, who, would have been the perfect person to loft that pass); 3) the cover and contain guy blew the assignment....now 1, 2, and 3 all show how the play was not genius inspired..............but NUMBER FOUR IT WAS THIS DAMN FOOL WHO SCREWED UP THE ENTIRE GAME AND PUT US IN THE POSITION OF HAVING TO STRUGGLE FOR A WIN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Any further comments? Have I made myself clear?

I am not saying the play was Genius and because of it he is the best, but it was a brilliant called play and executed perfectly. The players and coach did a great job on that play. Henning called plays that ran the ball for over 150 yards. Henne also got the ball to Marshall for over a 120 yards and Henne himself was 231yards with 2TD' and 1 int. I agree that Henning has called some bad plays in past games, but the guy had a decent game. The packers are a good defense. WHen you are attacking him for this game and specificly this play, I just dont see the value in it, sorry.

so have we gotten to the point as dolphans that even when we score touchdowns we have to criticize our coaches and Chad Henne? How sad it was a great play and executed great and had an even greater result.

"It's been fun to get the reaction of visiting coaches to the color of their locker room. Most don't notice it, but those that do are in trouble. . . . When I talk to an opposing coach before a game and he mentions the pink walls, I know I've got him. I can't recall a coach who has stirred up a fuss about the color and then beat us.” Hayden Fry

I'm not criticizing Henne, G Fish. I don't think it was smart to call a play to be executed by someone who was likely to flub the play, not because he is a bad quarterback, but because he is an excitable strong-armed young quarterback. Yes, the play succeeded but some folks, in my opinion, saw it as an excuse for all of the bad things the play caller Hennings did in the entire rest of the game.

To answer you Crowder52, he called an awful gang. I will now join in the criticism of the absolute insanity of not throwing a Hail Mary at the end of regulation.

Suppose we had loss the coin toss and Green Bay had scored on the next series of downs? What would you guys have said then? What possible justification do you have for not attempting to score on what COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR LAST FREAKING PLAY???

The guy is a total idiot!

And to those of you saying, "What is the hell is this guy doing piping on when we won the game?"

THAT'S JUST THE POINT! I don't want to LOSE A FUTURE game by reason of this idiot walking around thinking he's a genius because "All is well that ends well."

That may be great for Shakespeare but it is bad for a sports team.

The great teams LEARN FROM THEIR WINS BETTER THAN THEY LEARN FROM THEIR LOSSES.

Yes not going for the hail mary was a bad call you can't argue that.

Just can't everyone knows that you have one shot to put the game away and not play luck with a freaken coin toss.

ESPECIALLY with our special teams.

It worked out, but again hey.

Chyren,
Greenbay did get the ball in overtime and our defense stopped them. Sorry but your arguments have way to many hypotheticals , I am talking about what actually happened in the football game. All I can say is sorry you feel that way about the team, Hope you feel better about the team after next week. Good luck with it!

they got the ball but only after we flopped on three straight passes had they of gotten the kickoff however they very may well have returned it for the win. I can see no reasons to not at least try to hail mary it. The only thing i can think is that they were just rattled after the touchdown preceeding it that they wanted the time to regroup and collect themselves but its not hard to throw a 50 yard bomb into the crowd to end the regulation.

"It's been fun to get the reaction of visiting coaches to the color of their locker room. Most don't notice it, but those that do are in trouble. . . . When I talk to an opposing coach before a game and he mentions the pink walls, I know I've got him. I can't recall a coach who has stirred up a fuss about the color and then beat us.” Hayden Fry

Crowder52 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chyren,
> Greenbay did get the ball in overtime and our
> defense stopped them. Sorry but your arguments
> have way to many hypotheticals ,

RESPONSE: Okay, one more time. Yes, Green Bay did get the ball and we stopped them. Had we NOT stopped them, do you know what I would have said????????

I would have said, "Well, we got the ball first and we had a chance to win it in overtime and since we didn't we have no one but ourselves to blame."

Okay, but that is BECAUSE we won the toss.

I'm trying to take you to an alternative universe where you just don't want to go. That alternative universe is WHAT IF WE HAD LOST THE TOSS? Let us assume that THEN Green Bay had scored. This is NOT COLLEGE FOOTBALL. We don't get a chance to try ourselves. Game over.

Now, I would not have made the statement above. You know what I would have said? On our last chance to win the game, we knelt down.

You can't just look at the results of a game. If someone were to take your child and throw it across the cliff to one of his buddies who caught the child, are you REALLY gonna say, well, my kid survived, why should I complain.

Now granted, a Hail Mary pass does not have the same chance of succeeding as not throwing a child across a cliff has the chance of keeping the kid safe but Jeez. You just don't throw away WHAT COULD BE your last chance to score for nothing.

I maybe could have seen a kneel down had we been behind our own twenty yard line but not in that situation. It was a reckless and irresponsible waste of what could have been our last chance to win.



I am talking
> about what actually happened in the football game.
> All I can say is sorry you feel that way about the
> team, Hope you feel better about the team after
> next week. Good luck with it!

g_fish55 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> so have we gotten to the point as dolphans that
> even when we score touchdowns we have to criticize
> our coaches and Chad Henne? How sad it was a great
> play and executed great and had an even greater
> result.


Gotta think that the only reason to complain here is to prove a point as to how stupid the Henne criticism has gotten. Chyren has a lot of good points, and so I've got to think this is some kind of joke.

This play was obviously well practiced. It looks to have been well scouted - as if Henning knew that Green Bay would come with the safety blitz on that situation. That was a great call and execution, from letting the Defenders overplay, all the way down to Jake Long's downfield blocking.

I've dissed this team for running so many identical screens, but this was a new one and quite unpredictable.

Don't get me wrong, DolfanMike, I am not so much criticizing the screen as am saying that that one play should not redeem Henning for all the bad playcalling he did prior to that.

Crowder52 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The same stupid guy Henning called a pretty
> brilliant play, on the TE screen with Long leading
> the way, that scored a much needed TD. He also ran
> the ball fairly well and got the ball to Marshall
> a bunch to start the game off until they started
> basicly triple covering him... Henning did not
> call a perfect game, but he called a better one
> then his opponent and in the NFL that is what you
> got to do from week to week. The blown play was
> really on the other side of the ball, that OB
> sneak to tie the game from Rodgers. But as I said
> before , same with Nolan, he called a better game
> then his opponent as well.
>

An idiom regarding visually impaired squirrels and Fagales comes to mind.

ChyrenB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't get me wrong, DolfanMike, I am not so much
> criticizing the screen as am saying that that one
> play should not redeem Henning for all the bad
> playcalling he did prior to that.


I totally agree with that. The screen was a great call. It is the kind of thing an OC should be thinking about during the week, installing, practicing, considering when and where to use it.

The problem I have with this coaching staff isn't what it does Monday to Saturday, it is how it works on Sundays. Between the few good plays that Henning probably game planned days in advance, he run many, many horrible plays. It is as if he isn't aware of what is going on in the game, only with what he was doing during the week.

thats the point of a screen though, you trick the defenders into thinking they beat you playing on there aggression, so they attack the quaterback leaving the reciever with a large opening for big yardage

"It's been fun to get the reaction of visiting coaches to the color of their locker room. Most don't notice it, but those that do are in trouble. . . . When I talk to an opposing coach before a game and he mentions the pink walls, I know I've got him. I can't recall a coach who has stirred up a fuss about the color and then beat us.” Hayden Fry

Yeah, but when you're the only defender on that end, dude, and you have outside containment, and the quarterback still has the ball in his hands, and your other buddies are closing in on him and your receiver is mysteriously no longer trying to block you but is slipping away, the rule is that you follow your receiver instead of joining the pack on the sack, particularly if outside contain is your responsibility.

So how do you know that outside contain was his responsibility? How do you know that his job was not to get to the QB. How do you know that they weren't set up perfectly for this play?
To many assumptions. I don't buy it.
You can dissect every play and find something wrong on one side of the ball or the other.
Why don't you just admit that it was a very good call and the play was exicuted as close to perfect as possible. TOUCHDOWN says it all.

It was a GREAT freakin' play! Give it up!

The playcalling was not great the entire game but that was a GREAT freakin play! Perfectly executed and perfectly timed.

errrrr...He's the defensive end on that side and the tight end was the only receiver on that side????????

GBO, the results of the play were great but even if I say that it was a great play, does that excuse the brain dead plays for the rest of the entire game. My only quibble with the play was one that could not have been cured and that was that it was risky to be run with Henne at this stage of his career but let's talk about great results.

This whole discussion did not arise out of me criticizing that play. It arose when certain persons on the board rose to defend Henning by saying, "What do you mean he is a crappy play caller, look at this one play here."

So when you jump into an argument, jump in in the proper context.

If you think Dan Henning is a great play caller, Leon and GBO, say so in the next post, so we can get off this one play and discuss his whole play calling.

If so, then I will mark you down on my list of Henning supporters so that when he blows the next game by brain dead play calling like f*ing away what could have been our last shot at winning the Packer game by taking a kneel down with 4 seconds left in regulation, I will not allow you to join in in the criticism for losing the game.

You've got to criticize your team even when it wins in order to push for the team being better and better. In my opinion, it is chickensh_t to praise the team when it wins doing dumb sh_t and then jump down on those same play callers when they lose the next game doing the same dumb stuff that they did in the last game and won and therefore thought they called a great game because people like you just looked at the ultimate outcome and praised them.

Now, if on the other hand, you are just defending that one play then you entered the argument on the wrong basis because my point was not to say it was a terrible play but to say that it was not that great of a play to excuse all the dumb crap he did for the rest of the game.

ChyrenB you are out of control with this. I entered this discussion because you were knocking Henning so emphatically, even saying that this play call was not a good call. I have never defended or knocked Henning. I am simply saying that this call was a great call. I will expand on that by saying that Henne running it was also just fine. If Henne can't run this play then he needs to go back to High school and start again.
Henne did a great job looking to his right and then completing the pass. Just as he should.
The call was great because the defense was set up so beautifully for it. That is obvious.

You just hate Henning and will blast him even when he makes a good call. That is my point and I'm sticking to it.

BTW, if I get pissed at the game management or play calling, I'll say so regardless of what you want or think. And I also will give a complement when they do it right.

I agree completely with what Leon said.

But to add to it, you say that it was a bad call b/c Henne was the QB and not ready for a play like this at this stage of his career. Why??? He's widely know as being very accurate when he rolls out..especially to his right.

That being said, it would surprise no one when he rolls out like he did on that play and a defender on the back side would take it as an opportunity to get a backside hit on the QB. Plus, as was mentioned earlier, if the OLB recognized the play and Henne had to throw it away...what have we lost? It was only first down anyway.

I question a lot of Hennings calls, as does every fan of every team in the league...but I also give it up when he makes good ones. Every call is not going to be "hall of fame" worthy, but give credit where it's due and that was a perfectly timed, perfectly executed play.

Oh yeah, by the way, like Leon, I reserve the right to criticize coaches when they do wrong whether you'll allow it or not.

ChyrenB, Yup, you're totally out of control. Nuf Said.

i honestly think that henning is a complete buffoon, having said that even the dumbest of coaches are able to call a fluke good play every once in a while.
I think he has made progress in at least for now suspending play on the wildcat, but he does have a very long way to go before becoming anything close to a truly competant OC like when we can run for 5 or 6 yards at a pop but then just randomly deciding to throw three passes.

"It's been fun to get the reaction of visiting coaches to the color of their locker room. Most don't notice it, but those that do are in trouble. . . . When I talk to an opposing coach before a game and he mentions the pink walls, I know I've got him. I can't recall a coach who has stirred up a fuss about the color and then beat us.” Hayden Fry