This is what I told someone on another post and since you brought the debate over here I would like to say this to all the people who are in favor of benching Pennington and bringing in Henne.

In principle you are correct. I too believe that
we need a long term solution at the QB position. Also that Henne needs time under center in real games to make progress in his development. However I dont see the rush in bringing him in because of a couple of reasons-
1- Henne is not ready- The guy just stunk it up real bad during the off season. It is clear that he can still use some time on the bench, watching tape of real game situations, really just being a student of the game. All those tendencies he showed during the pre season, like you have said before can not be corrected 100% off the field, but they can be minimized if he becomes a true student of the game and gets more acquainted with his teammates and overall with everything that goes on in the NFL. Aaron Rodgers held the clipboard for 3 full seasons before being a starter and look at him now. Bottom line, Henne can use all the grooming he can get, and then some more.

2- Yes, this franchise its looking towards the future, but along the way something came up and we rode it till it took us to the playoffs. This players want to win now and they already proved they can. Yes, the future is there and nobody wants to mess with it, but why not keep riding this Cinderella story till it lasts ?

3- Veterans want to win- As much as we as fans want to dismiss this season or even last season as garbage time in favor of a successful rebuilding process, most of the players not only want to win now, but they believe they can do it. Just look at Joey Porter , Jason Taylor , Will Allen Yeremiah Bell or Jason Ferguson go, those guys won’t see the glory days 3 or 4 years from now. This coaching staff owes them putting the best product on the field. That right now is not a 2nd year quarterback.

4- I understand your urgency. This team will be very very good soon. But how soon? We’ve got an O-Line that is playing together for the first time ever, a franchise LT who still seems too immature nfl wise, we got two rookie cornerbacks, one of them who can’t even get on the field let alone begin to shorten his learning curve. We don’t even have a young NT waiting on line to replace Jason Ferguson. The young safety Clemons is buried in the depth chart in favor of Yeremiah Bell. Hell, our brand new 3rd round pick isn’t even getting dressed for game day. Not to say we still have to go out there and get ourselves a true number one receiver (no ginn wont ever be one, kenny britt right now is two times the receiver ginn will ever be). So there, we are still way way way too young.

So whats the rush? Lets enjoy what we have right now, the future will take care of itself.

or it opens up the field for ted ginn and the running game!!

YOU NEVER KNOW.

Beck really looks good as our #3 QB. Maybe a trade back to Miami?

my memory is a little hazy from all those superbowls…. so maybe the fans calling for his head understood things a little better then you give them credit….

plus, i don’t recall anyone saying the farve move was bad when the went and killed the titans and took the #1 seed spot before farve hurt his arm… does anyone think pennington could have led the fins to any points against the titans d last year when he couldn’t do anything against a lesser d in bmore?

How good Scott Mitchell was.. Lol.. We had a good line, Marino went down & magic happened. Marino came back & people were wanting Mitchell.. Howd that do for the Lions?
If we can’t spread the field, the box stays stacked. Yes Henne should have got to play late 4th.
I’m no coach but I’ve watched enough to know that you have to have some offense or the dc gonna come at you all game.
How sweet was the bomb? Yea it missed by far but how sweet was it to see one?
I’m a team player & a realist.
We are rebuilding..
Blast me all you want but we had lot in our favor last season.
As much as I want the rings now, I know what’s going on & so does most everyone else. Just excited from last year.

There is something different about this regime. I think their going to go old school on Indy Monday Night. Just a thought and no I don’t drink kool aid.

I’d bet after this week alot of Dolphins fans would say we should have taken Matt Ryan over Jake Long last year. I guess I’m one of them, but I’ll admit I wasnt in love w/ him coming out of college

The debate over the what ifs. My point is simple protect the QB. O-line was sloppy against ATL. How do you defeat a big O-line(speed). That’s the Past. I would not want to be a miami O-linemen in practice this week. Tony S. probably has a bat in the trunk of his car. Some people wonder why they keep bring in TEs. Pascoe is a blocking TE not a project. Matt Ryan will be a good QB in the NFL maybe even great but who knows. This O-line will gel have faith.

Regarding your Bledsoe example: EVERYBODY who replaced him was an exception to the rule, not just Romo (Cough* Brady)

Maybe these so called Dolfans who want Pennington gone will listen to you.

This offense is geared around CP’s lack of arm stength period. I promise you mid year you will see henne at some point.

i agree completely about the Henne-Penne debate. it’s reached the point of annoyence, while it’s obvious that CP10 is our QB. He’s a great mental leader, who is on pace to have the highest completion rate in NFL history. Look it up, it’s true.

if Sparano thought we had the best chance to win with Henne in the game, don’t you think he would be? I think Henne will be a great QB some day, but until the coach says he’s ready, I’ll ride the skirt tails of noodle arm as some of you call him. He might not have the strongest arm in the league, but he’s very smart and he’s not going to lose games for us. Yes I want Henne in the game too, but not until he’s ready. And like Matty said, why are so many of you fair weather fans giving up on the season after 60 minutes of football? The Colts are gonna have their hands full Monday night! GO FINS!!!!!!!!!!

I’m not even close to jumping on the Chad Henne bandwagon because I’m not even confidant that he is going to be the right guy for the job when it is his. We will just not know until then.

If we looked back at your blog posts last year, how many of you were calling for the Great Michigan Hope back then, or were you lauding Pennington time and time again, victory after victory?

How many of you were overjoyed to see your team march down the field, and score TD after TD, putting up victory after victory…. If you were calling for Henne then, then sure, maybe I’ll listen to you.. but if you weren’t… and I doubt many of you were….. Then really….take a good look at yourself.

seeing how CP was getting pummeled while throwing short and midrange passes on quicker drop backs. Deep routes only take longer to develop. With our line being unable to give CP much time to do the short/intermediate stuff, the deep passing games seems like a moot point.

I’m all for moving forward, after all we are all of 1/16th through the season.

A win against the colts and the bandwagoner’s will be back on.

Indy had a close escape against jacksonville and if we can establish the run, pressure Manning, and play smart (no turnovers) then we have a very good chance of winning and being relevant again.

More Dolfan blood’s gonna get spilt…

Did Merling earn a start with his strong performance or will he have a bad week of practice and come off the bench again, either way I’m glad we have this guy, our D-line was very stout, I kept waiting for them to start to break later in the game when the Falc’s were up and just trying to run time off the clock, I mean that was a great run team last year, but we really were stout, controlled the run game completely.

Did the Flying V earn a start, when I first watched the game I thought that Smith was benched in favor of Davis, turns out it was planned that way, they both knew going in that they would rotate, it just turned out that Vontae got more time at the #2 CB spot, but with Smith getting beat badly twice(they both were easy TD passes, Ryan just blew it), and Vontae showing explosive speed and quckness out there, did he earn a start?

Vontae had a couple gafs early as well, but Ryan was more accurate on those throws, however Vontae was in position to make the tackle and prevent a big play, unlike Smith who was not near his man when he was beat, he just got lucky that Ryan didn’t complete one of those throws.
Both guys settled down and played well throughout but Vontae got most of the reps because of the way the rotation worked out, Vontae is a force in support, whether it’s the run or the short pass screen plays, he is a force that Smith will never be, did it earn him a start?

I don’t think that Henne is quite ready to take over the reins quite yet. He hasn’t shown the consistency and good decision making that you want from your starting QB so far. Now granted, he hasn’t gotten a lot of time to play with the first stringers, but he still should have done well against the second and third stringers, and he didn’t do that great. I’m sure that he will get better with some more practice, and I’m sure he’ll be a pretty good QB.

Will he be a great QB that will lead the franchise for years to championships, or a good QB that gets the team wins, but rarely takes them to the postseason? Only time will tell. The FO has said many times that they plan to have Henne start the 2010 season, and they were up front to CP10 about that when they signed him. Let Pennington finish this season, let Henne learn as much as he can from him, and give Henne his shot next year as was the original plan.

The other thing that we can’t forget is that this team still has rebuilding to do. A lot of people seemed to have forgotten that we are rebuilding our team from a dismal 1-15 season. And rebuilding a team takes time, usually around 3 seasons or so, and this is year 2 for us. It seems like a lot of people are of the mindset that because we had such a great year last year, that our rebuilding is done and we are ready to be Super Bowl contenders. Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case.

There is still a lot of work to be done on the team, and it might take another year or two before we are seriously ready to contend for the Lombardi trophy on a consistent basis. Does it suck to say that we’re not ready now? Of course. Is it not fair to the older vets who deserve a shot at the championship and may not be around when we’re ready? Definitely. But we have to take the time to rebuild the team correctly and not rush things. If we try to rush it, we’re going to not let guys develop properly, and good talent might be wasted under too much pressure.

There are still plenty of areas that need work on the team. We need to get a young NT to provide some depth and start getting him ready, Ferguson’s not getting any younger. The defense looks pretty good, but it wouldn’t hurt to start developing some eventual replacements for JT and Porter. I would like to see a little more depth on the offensive line as well. And I also think that we need to get some help at our receivers. I know we picked up a couple of good prospects in Hartline and Turner, but overall, I see our WR corp as a great collection of #2, #3, and #4 receivers, with no true #1. I just don’t see it from Ginn that he has what it takes to be our #1 receiver.

I know that some people will say it’s because of CP10’s lack of arm strength that he can’t throw the deep ball and utilize Ginn’s speed. But Ginn hasn’t really impressed me with the other aspects of the position that it takes to be a #1 receiver. His route running hasn’t looked that great, and he has still struggled to get open at times. He’s shown flashes of being the playmaker that a #1 needs to be, but he hasn’t been able to do it consistently. I think that we need to admit that Ginn isn’t going to be our #1 and try and find ourselves someone who can fill that role.

Sorry for the long post, just had a lot of things to say. LOL

Last Sunday’s game was a very winnable game. We beat them in the run game, and our defense played great. Our problem was turnovers. Protect the ball and we can win. Hell, even with six or seven minutes left in the Falcon’s game, if the offense could have pulled it all together, we could have come from behind.