Quote:A week ago it was "Henne doesn't throw downfield"  Now - when he holds the ball long enough to throw downfield he takes 4 sacks more than he should have.  

Yes, 4 more.  I read the article and I re-watched the game.  I don't like Henne either, but only 4 of those sacks are on him. That's still too much but it's kind-of understandable when the headline all week was - "Chad Henne to chuck it deep more."  There is an obvious and direct correlation between asking a mediocre QB to throw deeper to a bunch of rookies and him taking 4 sacks that he wouldn't otherwise have taken. 

Should he have heaved it out of bounds on two of those? Absolutely. 

 

But  - Chad took 6 sacks that are blatantly the fault of a horrendous day by the line.  That's the way I see it.  I'll be happy to never see him behind center again, but putting more than 4 of those on Chad and lazily blaming Fisch are weak sauce, IMO. 

 

Imagine Fisch's offensive playbook is a shiny new car and we as fans are taking it for a test drive. Well, before you climb behind the wheel, go ahead and remove the right front wheel and tire.  Then permanently stick the gear selector in first gear and immobilize it.  Then see if you want to but it after that "test drive."  You can't even get it out of the lot.  You're driving in a circle at 10 mph with sparks flying from under the fender. 

That's how I see this offense functioning right now. 

 

Can Fisch possibly make some adjustments to try to spark the run game? Yeah, I'd like to see some effort there. Did he make a few head scratcher calls yesterday? Yeah, that's fair.  But the sacks, and the O-line dysfunction are hobbling any hope of us really evaluating Fisch, IMO. 

 

Yesterday's offensive debacle was more the fault of the O-line than any other player, coach or unit of players.  There's plenty to ho around, but it's they earned most of the blame. 

 

They did press Henne to stretch the field.  You're right that this probably generated more sacks for the team because they asked him to do it and not worry so much about making mistakes.  There is a correlation.

 

Fisch didn't make any adjustments to the game plan.  We ran the same crappy run plays with the same crappy results, got into a 3 touchdown hole, and were forced to abandon any semblance of a running game.  If he's calling plays to stretch the field at the same time the defense is putting 8 guys in the box and coming after the QB on every play, he's feeding their play calling and doing nothing to counter it effectively.

 

Fisch definitely deserves some scrutiny here, but that's not how things work.  It's got to be about one thing.  When the line doesn't block?  Henne's fault.  When the receivers don't shorten their routes on the blitz?  Henne's fault.  When the receivers drop balls that are catchable?  Henne's fault. 

 

It all starts up front.  If 80% of your line is doing their best turnstile impersonation, it's difficult for anyone to be consistently effective. 

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