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INDIANAPOLIS -- Tony Sparano didn't come out and say it, but he strongly suggested Chad Henne would have been the Miami Dolphins' opening-day quarterback last year had Chad Pennington not materialized.

Sparano, however, is glad he didn't have to go with Henne -- not because the Michigan rookie wouldn't have been able to handle the gig, but because a year under Pennington provided priceless schooling.

"We're fortunate that we have Chad Pennington and we didn't have to [start Henne] right away," Sparano said at the NFL scouting combine in Lucas Oil Stadium, "because I think the valuable lesson that Chad Henne learned this year ... I don't think that you can put a dollar value on what that guy learned this year from Chad Pennington.

"There's no better guy, in my opinion, and I've been around a lot of these veteran quarterbacks and then this young-guy-kind-of-looking-up-to-him situation and what he can learn. From Chad Pennington's standpoint, the kind of teacher that he is for those young guys is tremendous."

Before the New York Jets traded for Brett Favre and released Pennington to make room, the Dolphins were working with veteran Josh McCown, second-year pro John Beck and Henne, whom they drafted in the second round last year.

"When [Henne] came in and started competing we really started to see some positive things," Sparano said. "Henne in the preseason ran our football team pretty well."

I asked Sparano if he would have been comfortable with Henne as the starter.

"I would've had to have been comfortable with it, and knowing Chad right now, if he was in that situation would've been comfortable in it," Sparano replied. "You look at the other two young quarterbacks that had to play this year, they did a pretty nice job."

Rookies Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco led their teams to the playoffs.

Pennington did the same for the Dolphins, helping them improve from one victory to 11, one of the greatest single-season turnarounds in NFL history.

"The three people that were competing know my feelings that the separation that needed to occur didn't occur," Sparano said. "That's really when [Pennington] became available is why we thought 'We gotta to do this.'

"That being said, [Henne] closed the gap on some of those guys. That's what you want to see out of a young guy that you drafted where we drafted him."