By DAVE GEORGE
Palm Beach Post Writer
All right, so everyone agrees that the old hidden-ball trick ruling on Ben Roethlisberger's goal-line fumble was the vital difference in Miami's 23-22 loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday.
The second-biggest difference between winning and losing was quarterback, which comes as no great shock since Big Ben has won a couple of Super Bowls and Chad Henne has a career record of 10-9 as an NFL starter.
The way this game played out, however, raises questions about how ready Henne really is to lead a serious playoff contender and how capable he is of beating another one.
It has to do with the maturation of a young quarterback when it comes to reading defenses and assessing risks, and it has to do with how much Tony Sparano is willing to let Henne try before a fear of turnovers gets inside the coach's headphones and effectively shuts down the show.
In my view, Henne's still well worth investing in for the long term as Miami's starter. He's got the arm strength and the smarts and the confidence to be a consistent winner.
Short-term, however, this looks more and more like another season spent on development, another season of reminding Henne to throw the ball out of bounds or check it down to a running back or a tight end whenever the downfield defense fails to dissolve before his very eyes.
Can you live with that until 2011, even though Brandon Marshall is here in 2010? It looks like Sparano and offensive coordinator Dan Henning can, at least against the tougher teams on the schedule.
Problem is, when and if the Dolphins ever make it to the playoffs, it won't be the easy teams standing between them and the Super Bowl.
"I thought Chad threw the ball well at times," Sparano said Monday of Henne's 23-of-36 passing day against the brutally efficient Steelers defense. "I thought there were some decisions that could have been handled better, a couple of location issues. Those were some things that need to be cleaned up in this game."
Is he talking about the half dozen balls that Henne threw away on a day when Miami's pass protection was actually pretty solid? Maybe, at least on a few of them, but all they keep telling the guy is don't turn the ball over. Avoid the negative plays at all costs.
Then there's the final Miami possession, when 40 yards of two-minute drill production were needed to put kicker Dan Carpenter in position for a potential game-winning field goal.
The Dolphins moved 4 yards instead, fizzling out on a Ronnie Brown off-tackle run and three conservative short passes to the tight end and a pair of running backs, including a 2-yard dump to fullback Lousaka Polite on third-and-8.
"It's tough," Henne said. "The first play we ran the football because they were stacked in coverage and we tried to get a run out of that. The second play, they dropped everyone again and zoned us off and again we had to check the ball down.
"They had a good game plan for us."
Well, sure, but it feels like surrender when nothing goes Marshall's way with the game on the line. It feels, too, like Chad Pennington, the wise old head on Miami's sideline, wouldn't just zone out against a series of schemes he has recognized and dissected a million times.
The Dolphins are awful careful with Henne, looking to minimize mistakes in a parity-driving league rather than maximizing possibilities. So far 3-3 is where it's gotten them. Unless something changes, 8-8, or worse, is where they're headed.
The one specific criticism Sparano had for his quarterback Monday was on a third-quarter incompletion that was meant to be a back-shoulder completion to Marshall at the pylon on third-and-goal. Henne rifled the ball too hard and a little soon, before Marshall had a chance to turn and get both hands on it.
"We don't execute a throw down there that we execute a million times in practice," Sparano said, folding that play into the larger category of red-zone inefficiency by Miami.
He was miffed, but how did Dolphins fans feel in the first quarter when a Pittsburgh fumble at the Steelers' 13-yard line was followed by three handoffs to Ricky Williams and a Miami field goal?
Probably next week at Cincinnati, a team that allowed 39 Atlanta points on Sunday, the Dolphins will loosen up, finding more success in all phases of the offense. Henne and Marshall aren't always so shy, or else the superstar wide receiver wouldn't be on pace to obliterate O.J. McDuffie's franchise record of 90 catches in a single season.
Bolder is better all the time for Henne, though. Not that low gear won't get the Dolphins to the post-season one of these days, but it will be agonizingly slow.
