Tuesday, November 16, 2010

It's what you do without the ball...

Coastal Carolina Alum Tyler Thigpen
We depart serious subjects YOU want to talk about, to stuff only I (and maybe a few of you) want to talk about. SPORTS! Of course, my favorite and only consistent fanatical interest in sports for the past 43 years has been the Miami Dolphins!
My team is a mediocre 5-4 this year, only winning it's first game at home on Sunday. I got to watch part of it while doing my laundry.

Chad Pennington went down. Ouch. Chad is one of my favorite people. I really think I could throw the ball as often and as far down the field as Chad Pennington does, even at 56. The man has what is known as a "noodle arm" which hadn't been helped much by the fact that had three shoulder surgeries throughout his career, on his THROWING arm. The latest came last year. Pennington is a trooper, a magician and relentlessly upbeat. He does everything without the ball that a quarterback should be expected to do.

That brings us to Chad Henne. Henne seems reticent, not quite as bright (for all I know he has twice the IQ Pennington does) and more a company man waiting "his turn." He seems to want to learn "on the job" as opposed to "off the field." Henne was replaced by Pennington after eight games because the team needed to know that change was necessary to have a championship season. That's how it goes if you're a quarterback. It may not be Henne's fault that the team didn't have a winning record before Sunday's game, but it wasn't his fault that they had one either as evidenced by the fact that, well, they didn't have a winning record. Thus we went back to ole spark plug Pennington who can work his way down the field with virtually no arm at all.

Only on Sunday Chad P went out after two passes, for the season, again (fourth throwing shoulder injury).

Then Chad H put in a good performance, and went down for a while (who knows how long?) with a knee injury, and in walks Tyler Thigpen, picked up as insurance last year for a low round draft choice from Kansas City. I LIKE Tyler Thigpen. I liked him when he was with KC.

Tyler only put icing on the cake and did what he needed to do when the game was on the line to win the game. He was third string. That means NO practice with the first team. But Tyler said he took "100 mental reps" before he went into the game.

That, and the picture above makes me think the Coastal Carolina product (not known for producing NFL players) may kick everyone out of the driver seat and take over. Tyler has the attitude of a quarterback, much like Dan Marino's successor (Jay Fiedler) did. In the above picture, Tyler does not have the ball, he's not "under center" or throwing or dropping back in some classic pose, he's completely out of the play, probably between plays, and look at him.

He think he's in charge. Comments from the locker room make me think the team sees him that way too. Good luck to you Mr. Thigpen. May you stop my team from wasting endless 2nd round draft picks (A J Feeley, Daunte Culpepper, John Beck, Pat White and perhaps now even Chad Henne) on QUARTERBACKS. A lot of people think it's bad coaching but I think it's the ghost of (I didn't win any superbowls) Dan Marino, that has hobbled my team for the last 11 years. Look at what we've spent to replace him. In the end it may be that the two most durable starters will turn out to be bargain bin acquisitions. The aforementioned Mr. Fiedler and Mr. Thigpen.


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1 comment:

Vulture said...

I'm with you on Thigpen. I loved him in KC. I thought he was the only thing that team had going. He kept every game close despite playing on a turd of a team.

Your Dolphins are lucky to have him.