In Layman's Terms: The Dinger Influence

As no good BLOG goes without extension, I thought I might as well put up the article I had posted on GoTitans.com. I can appreciate my readers around here aren't particularly into the theme, but I shalt place it here anyhow. Maybe I have a larger fanbase with all the fringe Titans fans congregrating, hungry for some knowledge? It's doubtful, but mostly because their hunger would likely take them to someone smarter. There's only so much one man can do, you see.

In Layman's Terms: The Dinger Influence
Tony King
Jul 18, 2008

Of all the off-season changes the Titans made this year, perhaps the most significant was the re-acquisition of offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger. And why not? In theory, he should give a boost to everyone on the offense. Titans fans all across the land wait giddily for us to become a razzle-dazzle spectacle wherein Alge Crumpler returns to being one of the best tight ends in the league, Chris Johnson convincingly claims offensive rookie of the year acclaim, and Vince Young throws twice as many touchdowns as he did last year (actually, that last one shouldn't be too hard).

Or at least, we expect to see an improvement over Norm Chow's pee-wee offense that avoided the endzone as though it was haunted.

So what will we be getting from the Dinger sequel? We all know what happened in his first five year stint. Top ten in offensive yards in 2001 and 2003, top five in time of possession all five years (league leader in 2001 and 2002), co-MVP awards for Steve McNair in 2003, as well as the warm fuzzy memories of us taking some shots downfield every now and then.

But that was then. This is 2008. Who remains from those offenses? Practically nobody. No Mac, no Eddie, no Mase, not even stinkin' Chris Brown, (but in retrospect, we're used to him not playing anyway). The only holdover from back then is Eugene Amano, but I somehow doubt the offense will centralize around him. And yeah, J-Mac is back too, but I hardly recognize him now that he's bald.

The NFL remains a 'what have you done for me lately' league, and in all honesty I lost track of Dinger after he left us. Perhaps if we truly want to predict what he's going to achieve, we should delve into what he's done over the last three seasons.

In 2005, Mike jumped ship after a poor 5-11 season to take on the Jets' offensive coordinator position. Now as you might recall, the '05 Jets were horrible. Chad Pennington and Jay Fiedler went down in week three, leaving the QB reigns to first year starter Brooks Bollinger and Vinny Testaverde, who once upon a time was so bad there was a big blue billboard in Tampa that said "Vinny thinks this is orange!"

That year, the Jets ranked 29th in points scored with 240, nearly 100 less than the league average of 329.9. It was just an ugly season all around, with stats like 3970 total yards to the average 5054.7, and 11 touchdown passes to the average of 20.1 (as a matter of interest, Justin McCareins caught 43 passes for 713 yards and two TDs that year). The Jets were below the league average in every offensive category.

Any way you spin it, 2005 was a bad year for the 4-12 Jets, and particularly for Dinger's offense. I'm inclined however, to give him a mulligan on this one. In that season, Pennington, Fiedler, TE Chris Baker, RT Jason Fabini, WR Wayne Chrebet, C Kevin Mawae and later on RB Curtis Martin were all placed on injured reserve. Not exactly Dinger's fault, unless he was actually breaking fibulas and tearing rotator cuffs as a motivational tactic.

Herm Edwards was traded to the Chiefs after that year, and Dinger soon left for the Broncos. Though originally brought on as OC, that job later went to the line coach Rick Dennison making Dinger an assistant head coach. His influence was over the passing game, while Dennison covered the run game. As we all know, Mike Shanahan, a former OC himself, calls his own plays and obviously had a major influence in the Broncos offense.

In 2006, The Broncos took a startling fall, just missing the playoffs and again, the offense ranked below league average in all categories except, funnily enough, Dennison's run game. In passing yards, the Broncos finished a lowly 25th and sported 20 interceptions. One could pinpoint this however, to the inexplicable mess Jake Plummer became. After three strong seasons in Denver, in 11 games he threw 13 interceptions and posted a 68.8 QB rating. It was like Arizona had finally caught up with him. Rookie Jay Cutler became the starting QB, and managed a pretty good job of bringing some consistency back to the position. The overall offense ranked 17 in points gained, just one spot behind Chow's Titans.

2007 was worse for the offense as a whole with another poor statistical year. The Broncos offense ranked 21st in points scored, one spot ahead of Chow's Titans. But Dinger's passing game rose to 13 yardage gained. Jay Cutler started every game that year, threw 20 TDs to 14 interceptions, had a 63.6 completion percentage and a shiny 88.1 rating.

As most of us already know, Dinger worked closely with Cutler while at Denver. Out of the big three QBs available in the '06 draft, Cutler was the most overlooked (Vince Young being the most explosive, Matt Leinart being the most NFL ready), and though his team still hasn't found the success Vince has managed with the Titans, his career QB rating is 88.2 to Vince's is 69.0 and Matt's 71.2. People often say that what Vince does for a team isn't reflected in his rating, but you can't tell me that you wouldn't prefer he hold the intangibles, plus a lofty rating.

Yes, maybe Cutler has had a better understanding of the game after all, but it's impossible to think Dinger didn't have a lot to do with it. While we're throwing numbers out there (as I've done fairly frequently so far), Steve McNair's career QB rating is 82.8. In five years with Dinger, it was 87.4. The potential of what he can do for QBs is rather enticing, and hopefully he can transfer it to Vince Young, who certainly could use the help.

For those of you hoping for an offensive explosion to follow Dinger's return to Tennessee, there's one more thing for you to consider. Jeff Fisher.

It's no secret Fish favors a system of a steady run game an solid run D, maintaining possession and basically simulating a playground bully hogging the swings so that nobody else gets a turn. It might be wise to expect this to stay the same, especially considering he's got an inconsistent young QB, a gimpy old TE and receivers so B-grade you'd expect them to appear on a program hosted by Flavor Flav. With a strong o-line, a young group of running backs with potential, a smash-mouth fullback and a rookie tight end considered one of the better blockers in the draft, it smells like a ball control offense around the corner yet again, boys and girls.

Though the Titans will continue to focus on running the football, the team has passed more than run since Fisher's first season as head coach in 1995 (6538 passes to 6258 runs). This is on par with Dinger's first stint as OC when the Titans threw 2568 passes to 2432 runs. The difference in the Dinger years is the effectiveness of the passing game. And that's where I feel we'll feel his influence the most.

Early this season, look for immediate improvement in Young's mechanics and route-running by the receivers. Even though he claims to have mellowed, Dinger is a stickler for precision. In time, we may even see more shots downfield. But don't expect to see the Titans become a hulking offensive juggernaut right away. Miracles don't happen overnight. But expect the Titans passing game to dramatically improve over last season and the Dinger influence to exercise the ghosts from of the endzone.