Chad Henne Finally Plays Like He Should Have Been Playing All Season

Henne Showed Promise On Sunday

Yesterday, we saw that Chad Henne was finally able to play the way we have been expecting him to play the entire season. He was able to throw the ball deep when he needed to, but the most important thing was that he didn't have to carry the entire team on his shoulders.

The Miami Dolphins running game was able to carry part of the load, and that was a huge help for Henne. There have been too many games this season where the Dolphins have relied completely on Henne's arm, and he isn't ready for that kind of responsibility yet.

He shouldn't have to have that kind of responsibility, either. Not many veteran quarterbacks can do well without help from their running game, so why would a young Chad Henne be able to do any better for the Miami Dolphins?

Miami's numbers running the ball actually weren't anything special. With the exception of a late 45 yard touchdown run when the game was already put away, the Dolphins numbers were a little pedestrian. Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams gained 180 rushing yards together off of 44 carries. Those are pretty good numbers, but you would think they would have been able to gain more yardage with that many carries. If you take out the 45 yard run, they combined for 135 rushing yards on 43 carries. That is 3.1 yards per carry, which isn't very good.

What I am trying to say, though, is that maintaining a steady dose of the running game is important because it keeps defenses guessing. Keeping defenses guessing helps Chad Henne do better and throw fewer interceptions. Even though running the ball didn't move Miami down the field too well, it still kept the Raiders defense honest.

I liked what I saw in Henne against Oakland, too. He was able to keep his composure after throwing a bad interception and continue to drive the ball down the field later on. The crazy thing is that he didn't even have Brandon Marshall. He wasn't even playing with his best players, yet he was still able to throw the ball all over the field. He threw touchdown passes to Marlon Moore and Patrick Cobbs, who (I might add) aren't really considered playmakers in the NFL.

I'll be honest, I wasn't too confident about the Dolphins coming into this game, but Chad Henne showed me a lot on Sunday. He had good numbers, but the biggest improvement was the mentality he played with. He is playing with a lot more fire after being benched for Chad Pennington and then Tyler Thigpen.

Don't give up on him yet. I have a feeling that he is going to have a great career after watching that game.

Thanks for reading, and please leave a comment saying what you think about Henne.

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In An Interesting Move The Miami Dolphins Release WR Patrick Turner

Patrick Turner

In a move that I found pretty surprising, the Miami Dolphins released WR Patrick Turner. Turner was finally showing some promise this preseason after not really doing much in his rookie season last year.

The Dolphins were expected by a lot of people to release either undrafted receiver Marlon Moore or undrafted receiver Roberto Wallace. Instead they got rid of Turner, though. All three players have shown a lot of promise this offseason, so it isn't like Turner is a big loss to the team.

Moore and Wallace have been surprisingly good since the Dolphins picked them up after they went undrafted.

It is a little bit ironic that the Dolphins keep two players that were not even drafted on the same day that they released QB Pat White who they drafted in the second round of last year's draft. Pat White may not have been the best draft pick, but Wallace and Moore seem to be pretty good picks after the fact.

But, back to the releasing of Turner. I honestly did not see that move coming. I thought that because Turner was finally coming around that they would be willing to keep him around. Maybe they just decided to not let him have some time to develop and just let him go.

I want to say it is kind of like Pat White's situation, but I am not sure whether Turner got as much of a chance as White did. Whether they saw him as a Pat White-type pick or not, he is gone now.

I actually kind of like the move. We get two people with a lot of potential. What's your opinion on the move? Do you like it, or do you think we should have released somebody else? Let me know in the comments.

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Not A Very Good Showing From The Miami Dolphins First Offense

Chad Henne

The Miami Dolphins preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons was an ugly one, and it was especially ugly for the Dolphins offense. The only thing that seemed to work for the Miami offense was the short dump-off passes to the running backs, but even those didn't do anything really special.

I am still waiting to see a big connection between Brandon Marshall and Chad Henne. It has not been there so far, and I am hoping it will develop soon. Marshall will still be able to do well, but not as good as he is capable of if he does not click with Henne. I am counting on the Marshall-Henne connection to not really be much of a problem. They should be fine, but I just thought I would mention it.

Not only was the passing game bad, but the rushing game was even worse. Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams just seemed unable to get anywhere. The most significant run came from rookie WR Marlon Moore on a reverse hand-off, and he was able to run the ball deep into the red-zone. Moore was one of the few bright spots from the game. He is really doing well this year, and he has a good shot at making the team.

On the other side, the Miami Dolphins Defense did better than the offense overall, but their performance was still pretty average. There were two good things I noticed about the defense, though. They seem to be pretty good at forcing turnovers, and Vontae Davis is really, really good. He had a great night in terms of coverage, and he also was able to force a fumble, too.

These are the types of games that we just want to forget and move on from. Let's hope this was just a rare occurence. Maybe our offense will be back to "normal" next week.

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