As if things could not get worse for the 0-3 Miami Dolphins, quarterback Chad Pennington left Sunday’s game against the Chargers after sustaining an injury to his twice-operated on right shoulder. Said Dolphins coach, Tony Sparano, of the injury:
Chad Pennington Injures Surgically Repaired Throwing Shoulder, Doubtful for Week 4
I only know that it’s a shoulder [injury]. We’re going to evaluate it when we get back.
NBC’s Pro Football Talk, however, has more information:
Per Peter King of NBC, via Bob Costas during the post-game show, Pennington is doubtful due to a shoulder injury he suffered in the third quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Chargers.
If Pennington is unable to go next weekend, Chad Henne will likely get the start. Henne was 10 of 19 for 92 yards and an interception in relief of Pennington.
Speaking of Henne, here is SB Nation’s The Phinsider’s take on his performance:
We got our first taste of the 2009 version of Chad Henne as he came on in relief of the injured Chad Pennington. Needless to say (or is it, after reading some of the comments in the post-game thread), it's not fair to judge Henne off of this game or to make ridiculous assumptions off of a quarter and a half of work. It's unlikely that Henne was getting much practice time with the starting offense during the week and it was clear that the rhythm of the offense - if the Dolphins even have one - was affected by the change. So let's give Henne some time before bashing him - which should mean a lot considering I haven't ever been overly impressed with Henne since college.
With that said, here's what I saw out of Henne. I saw a quarterback who looked uncomfortable on the field. He didn't look confident. He didn't look calm and collected. I also saw some inaccurate throws. Should Ted Ginn have caught those back-to-back drops? Of course (and we'll get to Ginn later). But they were inaccurate - especially the second one.
I also saw a quarterback who made a terrible decision to seal the game for the Chargers. Henne dropped back and did look right before coming back to Davone Bess, who was running an out pattern to the left. But he took too long to get back to him and make the throw. Henne needs to throw that before Bess makes his break. He was late with the ball and Eric Weddle read it all the way. But he'll learn from that - I hope.
All told, there isn't too much to talk about. Henne was thrown into a difficult situation and he played like you would expect an inexperienced quarterback to play. But at 0-3 - and I said this last week - it's time to make the switch to Chad Henne as the starter. With Pennington's injury, this might work itself out to begin with. But even if CP is capable of playing next week, there's no point. Let Henne get 13 games of starting experience under his belt in 2009 so we can begin to evaluate his long-term potential.
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