In parentheses is each guy's rank at his position among players who took at least 25% of their teams' snaps.

LT Jake Long +24.3 (#2)
LG Richie Incognito +4.1 (#9), quite poor in pass protection, allowing 22 combined sacks, hits, and pressures, his best grade came in screen pass blocking. If anyone thinks Incognito is the answer at Center, think again. His two game grades when he played center were -1.3 and -1.8.

C Joe Berger +1.3 (#16)
RG John Jerry -7.7 (#26)
RG Pat McQuistan -13.4 (#30), earned a -6.9 in one game at LG, and combined -3.4 in two games at RT
RT Vernon Carey -1.0 (#12) led the team with 23 QB pressures allowed, yearly salary takes a big jump this season, which makes you wonder if we will cut him.

QB Chad Henne +24.8 (#18), ranked just behind Tony Romo and Jay Cutler, and just ahead of Matt Cassel, Sam Bradford, Jason Campbell, and Kyle Orton

RB Ronnie Brown +2.4 (#27)
RB Ricky Williams -3.5 (#48)
FB Lousaka Polite -9.5 (#27)

TE Anthony Fasano +12.7 (#4), very high grades for run blocking
WR Davone Bess +6.5 (#16)
WR Brandon Marshall +3.8 (#28), led the league in dropped passes and 5th in most penalties
WR Brian Hartline +1.9 (#39)



DE Kendall Langford +14.3 (#5)
DE Randy Starks +9.7 (#10)
DE Tony McDaniel +6.8 (#13)

Throw in Odrick and Merling, and clearly, DE is a huge position of strength.

NT Paul Soliai +17.7 (#5), a breakout year just in time for free agency. Ross needs to open the checkbook to keep him.

OLB Cam Wake +38.6 (#4) 21 QB hits and 29 pressures in addtion to his sacks. Incredibly, Tamba Hali, Demarcus Ware, and Lamarr Woodley all had more than 50 pressures each.
OLB Koa Misi +15.1 (#7), ranked 2nd best against the run, and that's huge, considering the concerns over his lack of size headed into the year. If he can add some pass rush moves in the offseason, he can be a stud.

ILB Karlos Dansby +14.8 (#12)
ILB channing Crowder +12.4 (#17), not a Crowder fan, but we do play better with him in there, and he was solid this season when healthy
ILB Tom Dobbins +5.2 (#28), very good run defender, awful against the pass

CB Sean Smith +12.0 (#8), big step up in year 2, including against the run. Imagine his grade if he could actually hang on to interceptions.
CB Vontae Davis +9.0 (#14), I love when the TV announcers say he doesn't get thrown at. He was thrown at 72 times, just 5 times less than as a rookie.
CB Benny Sapp -1.3 (#59), hopefully Nolan Carroll can take his role in 2011

FS Chris Clemons -4.1 (#61 among all safeties, it was too much work for me to figure out where he was among FS)
SS Yeremiah Bell +9.4 (#5)

Lex Hilliard graded out as our best special teams player, with a +2.0, ranked #39 in the league. Reshad Jones was next best, at #57.

K Dan Carpenter +7.0 (#14)
P Brandon Fields +15.9 (#2)

KR Nolan Carroll +3.8 (#11)
PR Davone Bess -0.5 (#30), #2 in the league in fair catches

I supported Henne all season, but the bottom line is....he was not the 18th best QB.


He was in the bottom 3...easy.

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"When you suck long enough, you get a Hickey"

Aqua&Orange Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I supported Henne all season, but the bottom line
> is....he was not the 18th best QB.
>
>
> He was in the bottom 3...easy.


Not with Derek Anderson, Jimmy Claussen, Brett Favre, and Bruce Gradkowski around.

I wouldnt consider Gradkowski the starter, I would think Jason Cambell.

But still, look at the names you just mentioned.....and then the stat has him #18.


Something is just fishy with that.

---------------------

"When you suck long enough, you get a Hickey"

Aqua&Orange Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wouldnt consider Gradkowski the starter, I would
> think Jason Cambell.
>
> But still, look at the names you just
> mentioned.....and then the stat has him #18.
>
>
> Something is just fishy with that.

It's not a stat. It's a grade. They grade each player on each play from -2.0 to +2.0. The vast majority of plays fall into -0.5 to +0.5. If Henne delivers a pass that hits Marshall between the numbers, and Marshall drops it, Henne would get a positive grade for that play. But, in the NFL "QB Rating," that play would hurt Henne. In the grading system, a QB is also not punished for incomplete passes when he's hit as he was throwing (unless he held on to the ball too long), or for passes when he was just throwing it away. QBs get punished for penalties like intentional grounding or a delay of game. Only 2 QBs in the league had fewer penalties called on them than Henne, so he had one of the better grades in that area. He was among the league leaders in dropped passes and the times he was pressured, so you can see where his grade would come out higher than people might think. Plus, people have short memories, and they tend to focus on the meltdown that happened late in the season. Through mid-season, Henne was in the top 10 in completion percentage, and was around 14 or 15th in passer rating. This is reflected at profootballfocus.com, too. Through the Oakland game, Henne's only overall negative performance was the first Pats' game. The last 5 games were a totally different story.

But, the biggest thing in these grades is that it is clear that the offense is not a QB away from being good. The interior of the line is awful, and Carey is questionable given his injured status and big salary jump in 2011. We need a 2nd TE who can contribute. We need two new RB and a new FB. We need at least 1 new WR, and 2 if they decide to trade Marshall, given his "me first" attitude. The offense is 7 or 8 players away.

Ok, I get you.

But, here is my main problem with Henne this season.


There were 5 games that he got the ball with a chance to win us the game on the final drive.....

and he was 0-5 with 5 INT's.

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"When you suck long enough, you get a Hickey"

A and O you nailed it

Aqua&Orange Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ok, I get you.
>
> But, here is my main problem with Henne this
> season.
>
>
> There were 5 games that he got the ball with a
> chance to win us the game on the final drive.....
>
> and he was 0-5 with 5 INT's.

While the 0-5 is true, the 5 INTs is an exaggeration. The final drive against the Lions did not end with an INT. The final two drives in the Bills game did not have INTs. And on a technicality, the Pitt game counted as an INT, but it clearly was not one, and the officials did not review it because they just wanted to get off the field after the whole fumble debacle. And the Jets game, that's the one where Marshall was called on the carpet by the NFL Network guys for his disappearing act once we got inside the 10. Henne looked for him on 3 straight plays, Marshall made no effort, so on 4th down, Henne forced it into Fasano because at least he would try to catch it.

And how many of those last drives started with a draw play? And how many had us with a RB and FB/TE on the field, staying in to block because our o-line was a disaster? Which means 3 guys running patterns, and 7 defenders to cover them. Go back and look at the end of the Lions game. That was the exact scenario. We could not block their 4 linemen with our 5, so we were forced out of the 5 WR formation, and had to keep guys into block.

Henne did not play well down the stretch, not by a longshot. But, the issues go well beyond him. Even Dan Marino couldn't win us games by himself when he had no talent/speed around him.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2011 02:08AM by dolfanmark.

Amen dolfanmark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aqua&Orange Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ok, I get you.
>
> But, here is my main problem with Henne this
> season.
>
>
> There were 5 games that he got the ball with a
> chance to win us the game on the final drive.....
>
> and he was 0-5 with 5 INT's.

Thats a bad stat, and you would hope that he could at least get a couple of those game winners, but you cant put that all on henne. He is asked to be a caretaker more or less and do what he is told for 58 minutes, then in the final two minutes of a game he is told to go win it, and he doesn't have the chemistry built up to do it, and the coaches have him convinced that if he fails he wont get to control the offense like he wants to.

Bottom line is that if your too afraid to fail that you dont give yourself a chance to succeed, you never will.

"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

The way the coaches have handled Henne is just as bad as how Henne has played. If you can't agree with that, you're just a "Henne Hater". I don't think Henne has the potential to be a stud in this league, based on things I've seen from him in how he reacts to failure. QB's have to have a short memory and a rubber band mentality to bounce back. He hasn't shown this and worse yet when he does fail, he doesn't take accountability and instead dances around it by laying it on the "team". Real QB's in this league take 100 percent of the blame and 100 percent of the accolades when they succeed. That's just how it is. Until he mans up and accepts that as the QB1, he is responsible for the entire offense, he won't amount to much. His arm strength, whatever attribute you want to lay at his feet, won't amount to crap until he learns how to LEAD.

Unfortunately for him, I don't think this coaching staff has the moxy or swagger to show him how it's supposed to be done. Sad really, because with proper instruction, he could have made some noise.

I'm just hoping some fool is willing to trade us for Henne as the "18 best" QB in the league.

BigNastyFish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm just hoping some fool is willing to trade us
> for Henne as the "18 best" QB in the league.

What's that count for? A 5th-round pick at best? If we did that people would be complaining just like they did when we traded Tedd Ginn.

I'm thinking a 4th would be very nice. A low 5th is right at the point of not being worth it. A high 5th is...

>>> OK.

If we could trade to Carolina for their 4th I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Time to move on and be decisive.

Just do it.

And shut up.

The point is, Henne cant win games. He can control games. But he cant win them.


He is unable to lead a team to victory. That's not starting QB material. That is backup QB material, which is what I think Henne is.

---------------------

"When you suck long enough, you get a Hickey"

Aqua&Orange Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The point is, Henne cant win games. He can control
> games. But he cant win them.
>
>
> He is unable to lead a team to victory. That's not
> starting QB material. That is backup QB material,
> which is what I think Henne is.

We could always to a WoodStrock thing. Let Henne start games ala Woodley and find a veteran that can be a closer. If Pennington wasn't QUITE so fragile, I'd say HennePenny could be a winning combo.

Penny is an egg.

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"When you suck long enough, you get a Hickey"