(My Sportsbook) - The
Miami Dolphins wanted Chad Henne to get some experience this season.
Given the second-round investment the team had made in the former Michigan signal-caller in the 2008 Draft, coupled with the fact that starter Chad Pennington was in the final year of his contract, Tony Sparano and company had an interest in getting Henne on the field in a meaningful situation.
And though Pennington's injury history didn't make the circumstances of Henne's elevation to No. 1 quarterback a shock, this is not the way Miami was hoping it would be making the transition.
Pennington reportedly tore the capsule in his throwing shoulder on a hit in the third-quarter of Sunday's 23-13 loss to the San Diego Chargers - the same shoulder he has had surgically-repaired on two prior occasions - and will likely miss the remainder of the season.
That places the immediate spotlight on Henne, who has thrown 31 meaningful NFL passes, 19 of which came in the second half of the San Diego loss. Henne finished 10-of-19 for 92 yards with an interception in the game, playing to mixed reviews in the eyes of his head coach.
"There were some location issues, throwing the ball with location," said Sparano of Henne's performance. "Those were the biggest issues during the course of the game from a minus standpoint. From a positive standpoint, he scored 10 points while he was in there on a couple of drives. I don't think at any point during the game he was really flustered at all...He got hit a couple of times in there. One time we had a mental error up front and [Kevin] Burnett came through the 'A' gap. They made a sack and he wasn't fazed in the least bit. I thought his look and demeanor for going into the game at that point was very good, and his handle of the offense was pretty good."
Though all young quarterbacks go through their struggles in terms of decision- making and adjusting to game speed, there is no doubt that Henne has the physical tools to be a capable NFL quarterback. Given his strong arm, there is a chance that in the long run, he'll be able to lead an offense that is more explosive than the efficient-but-unspectacular one that Pennington led.
That said, it could be the manner in which Henne is able to take command of the huddle that will determine his long-term fate as the Dolphins' quarterback. On that account, as Sparano acknowledged, he'll have a tough act to follow in replacing Pennington.
"The leadership thing can't be water off a duck's back," said Sparano of the emphasis on that trait. "That to me is a major issue. I think just the experience of a guy of [Pennington's] caliber in the huddle like that, he's is our offensive leader and has been."
Complicating matters for Henne is the fact that the Dolphins have very little time to get their season headed in the right direction. The loss to San Diego dropped the Dolphins to 0-3, three full games behind the streaking New York Jets in the division.
The first real challenge for Henne comes this week at Dolphin Stadium, where he will face an equally desperate Bills (1-2) team.
"I told this team [Sunday], and I'll say it again," said Sparano. "It's not okay to be 0-3 right now. It's not, it's not acceptable, so if there's a place where we can shake some things up, we will."
BILLS: Surprise, surprise.
Terrell Owens was not happy in the wake of the Bills' 27-7 loss to the Saints, a game in which he did not catch a pass for the first time since the final game of 1996, his rookie season with the San Francisco 49ers. Owens had missed games due to injury and suspension since that time, but had never been an active participant in a contest in which he did not notch a reception.
When asked in the postgame press conference about his streak coming to an end at 185 games, Owens said curtly, "It's over...just got to get ready for next week."
Reporters pressed on with questions about the struggles of the offense, to which Owens responded, "I'm just running the plays that are called," on five occasions during a press conference that lasted roughly two minutes.
When asked if he liked the plays being called, Owens said, "Whether I like them or not, I'm just running the plays that are called."
Everything about the exchange was familiar to those who have followed Owens' career, as the wide receiver tends to display his most outward bitterness after losses. Even when Owens plays well in losing efforts, his frustrations have been known to bubble to the surface in his dealings with the press afterward.
Also following the pattern was the fact that Owens went on a national radio program on Monday and blamed the media for the attention that the postgame press conference had garnered.
"It really just shows you the angle that the media has taken all these years," said Owens on Sporting News Radio's Two Live Stews program. "Over the years I've always kind of spoken openly about whatever is being asked with my answers, so the last four or five years I've kind of noticed that and tried taking some steps to prevent some of those things happening.
"But [Sunday] as you saw,...[the media] took some more than initiative to try to get me to kind of go down the wrong path."
The Bills, now 1-2 after failing to score an offensive touchdown in the loss to New Orleans, dropped to 24th in NFL passing offense (186.7 yards per game) after Sunday's display.
Why do we have a feeling we have not heard the last of Owens?
JETS: OK, Rex Ryan. The 24-17 out-classing of a desperate Tennessee Titans team on Sunday crushed any few lingering doubts about the staying power that your New York Jets had. The "genius" tags, the very some ones that were used not so long ago on a guy heralded as "Mangenius" during his own rookie season as Jets head man, are now being trotted out liberally in discussions about your sideline abilities.
Now, all you have to do is go on the road and figure out how to stop the best offense in the business.
The Jets will travel to meet the New Orleans Saints on Sunday, a team that currently leads the league in scoring offense (40 points per game), total offense (438 yards per game) and touchdowns scored (15), and possesses arguably the NFL's best quarterback of the moment, Drew Brees.
Ryan was not slow to exalt Brees' abilities when he met with the media on Monday, and took the decidedly un-Mangini-like measure of talking about how to stop him.
"The thing about this kid (Brees), and we've played him before, (is if) you run a traditional coverage against this guy, he'll carve you up...but I have a lot of confidence in the guys we have on defense. It's going to be a great challenge. You've got to mix things up on them, mix pressures, mix coverages, (and) put some traps out there. He's a crafty guy. We're going to have our work cut out for us, but this is not going to be a traditional defense, and he knows that also.
Ryan also light-heartedly complained about the spate of difficult attacks Gang Green has been forced to face early in the campaign.
"We had to play at Houston. They've got a potent offense. You've got New England and Tennessee back-to-back. Oh, now you've got the Saints. I don't know who we're playing next, maybe a Pro Bowl team after that."
PATRIOTS: Yes, Massachusetts, the Patriots do have a running game.
After forcing their still-healing quarterback, Tom Brady, to put the football in the air 100 times during the team's middling 1-1 start, New England went to the ground a bit more often in Sunday's 26-10 handling of a good Atlanta Falcons team.
Brady still threw the ball 42 times, but the work of a running game that churned up 165 yards undoubtedly eased the pressure when the future Hall of Famer did drop back to throw.
"It was a more balanced day for us," said Brady, who threw for 277 yards and a touchdown on 25-of-42 passing. "We ran it great and we had some good play- actions. It was wet out there. We didn't have any turnovers, which was key. We haven't been turning it over much, which was a positive for us, and we got one from them. It was a good day."
The biggest rushing hero for New England was veteran Fred Taylor, who had the first 100-yard day of his post-Jaguars career by rushing for 105 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries.
"Fred's run hard for us all year - in preseason, in all the camps, training camp, and all that," said head coach Bill Belichick. "He runs hard and he runs smart. He knows where the holes are, he sets up blockers well and he can carry the load. He did a good job today and I thought our offensive line really did a much better job of coming off the ball than we have the last couple weeks, and gave the backs some room to run, and the backs ran hard.
"Obviously, the running game was a plus for us and that helped the passing game," said Belichick.
