My hope is that this little series will convince some of you that last year's woes weren't all Dan Henning's fault. Yes, Dan Henning was an atrocious playcaller and I am glad that he is gone, but his quarterback was not much better and should not avoid blame.
If you missed yesterday's post, I listed reasons why the Dolphins need to find somebody else to replace Henne, but I did not show a lot of statistics because I wanted to save them for today and tomorrow. I included reasons that you will not see by looking at statistics, as well, so you may want to check it out. I will add a link to yesterday's post at the bottom of this one.
But, onto today's post. Today I will be using the basic numbers that most people use to compare QBs. I will go more in-depth tomorrow, but I figured that it would be a good idea to compare Henne against other quarterbacks first.
So without further ado, here are the basics.
Chad Henne's passer rating this season was 75.4, which was worse than 25 other quarterbacks in the NFL. His rating only went up by .2 from last year, which is an unacceptably small margin of growth for a quarterback that is supposed to be improving after posting a low passer rating the previous year.
Henne threw 19 interceptions and only 15 touchdowns this year. Both touchdowns and interceptions were higher than last year, but he threw five more interceptions compared to just three more touchdowns. So, not only is he throwing more interceptions than touchdowns, his td/int ratio has gotten worse, as well.
He also averaged only 6.7 yards per completion, which was 24th in the NFL. I will say that this number is definitely not all Henne's fault, but he was still out there making the final decision on whether to throw the ball or not. You cannot just assume that Henne's mistakes are completely and utterly Dan Henning's fault, because Henne is the one deciding who to pass it to in the end, and many times he would decide to go with the shorter option, thus the low yards per completion.
Another stat that is partly Henning's fault and partly Henne's is the number of 20+ and 40+ yard completions. Henne was 21st in completions of 20 yards or more with 37, and he only had more 40+ yard completions than four NFL quarterbacks. Henne was too afraid to throw the ball long, and it showed with those numbers. Stephen Ross talked a big game for Henne during the off season, but he didn't show up and it is time to move on.
Henne will never be anything more than a game manager, and game managers don't win Super Bowls. The Dolphins need to get a young quarterback with a lot of potential, and I can think of a lot of available QBs with the potentail to be very successful in the NFL. Miami just needs to take a chance and get one.
Those are just some of the basic numbers and a little argument at the end. I hope you guys have enjoyed reading what I have written so far (whether you agree or not), and please be sure to check back tomorrow for the final post.
Please let me hear your feedback and/or opinions. You can either leave a comment or shoot me an email at paul@dolphinshout.com.
I look forward to hearing from you, and here is a link to yesterday's post if you didn't get a chance to read it:
Chad Henne Better Not Be The Miami Dolphins Starter
