BDL 2018 Week 9 - Louisiana Jazz @ Oklahoma City EF5s

[ny92mike]

BDL 2018 Week 9

Match:  Louisiana Jazz @ Oklahoma City EF5s

Away Owner: @WFLukic

Home Owner: @Whicker

           

Vote for who you think would win the game.

Rules:
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One vote per team involved in the match. Co-owners may vote in every match up except their own.

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Note: Players that have a (D) next to their name indicate that they are doubtful or unlikely to play. Players with (Q) are game-time decisions.

Good luck to you both.

[ny92mike]

Louisiana Jazz

Offense:

QB: Tom Brady
RB: Ezekiel Elliott
WR1: Michael Thomas
WR2: Sammy Watkins
TE: Zach Ertz
TE: Jared Cook
LT: Russell Okung
LG: Joel Bitonio
C: Ryan Jensen
RG: Connor McGovern
RT: Bobby Massie

RB2: James White
RB3: Nyheim Hines
WR3: Tyler Lockett
WR4: Zay Jones
TE3: Chris Herndon
OL6: TJ Lang
OL7: Matt Skura
OL8: Jared Veldheer

Defense:

DE: Jason Pierre-Paul
DT: Jurrell Casey
DT: Sheldon Richardson
DE: Jabaal Sheard
LB: Dee Ford
LB: Danny Trevathan
Slot CB: Chris Harris Jr.
CB: Stephon Gilmore
CB: Kyle Fuller
SS: Patrick Chung
FS: Micah Hyde

DL5: Johnathan Hankins
DL6: David Onyemata
DL7: Vinny Curry
LB2: Todd Davis
LB/S: Will Parks
CB4: Orlando Scandrick
CB5: Justin Coleman
S3: Duron Harmon

Oklahoma City EF5s

QB: Cam Newton
RB: Melvin Gordon III (Q)
WR: Adam Thielen
WR: Robert Woods
WR: D.J. Moore
WR: Anthony Miller
LT: David Bakhtiari
LG: Laken Tomlinson
C: Rodney Hudson
RG: Michael Schofield III
RT: Morgan Moses

RB: Joe Mixon
RB: Alex Collins (Q)
WR: Kenny Stills (Q)
WR: Taywan Taylor
WR: Michael Gallup
TE: Jesse James
TE: Mark Andrews
OL: James Daniels

 

Rush: Von Miller
DE: Cameron Heyward
NT: Eddie Goldman
DE: Stephon Tuitt
SLB: Lorenzo Alexander
MLB: Cory Littleton
WLB: Darron Lee
CB: Patrick Peterson
CB: Shaquill Griffin
FS: Jordan Poyer
SS: Adrian Amos

Rush: Ryan Kerrigan
Rush: Nick Perry (Q)
DL: Tyeler Davison
DL: Montravius Adams
LB: A.J. Klein
CB: Bene' Benwikere
CB: Trevor Williams
CB: Fabian Moreau

[ny92mike]

Louisiana Jazz

Motivation:

The division is on the line here and it’s a must win for us and while OKC winning would practically guarantee them the division, they do have the luxury of the 1.5 game lead. Also, this is a big time revenge match to get back at them for beating us earlier in the year. We’ll be prepared for any tricks they try to run with Newton this time around.


Offense:

Our offense is going to have a few key point which we’re going to focus on in exploiting a susceptible OKC D.

Firstly, to counter the strong pass-rush which OKC offers, we’re going be starting in our base two-TE set with the TE’s being taked with chipping Von Miller depending on which side he lines up on, or staying in-line to help with blocking. We’re also going to look to Ertz often as always against a rather pedestrian LB group, and even if being tasked with Amos in coverage, we’ll look to use his height advantage in tossing jump balls where only Ertz can reach it. Likewise with Cook, depending on who he draws in coverage.

We anticipate Peterson will be put on Thomas, but we still think Thomas can win consistently enough against him. Alternatively, we would not be surprised if Thomas is given double coverage and Watkins is put on Peterson’s watch. If that’s the case, we’ll work Tyler Lockett in for more snaps than anticipated and have him run deep, stretching the field and working over whoever the no.3 receive is to get deep gains.

The running game will be less of a priority in this game as although Elliott will still get 15-20 carries to keep the defense honest and cause some fatigue, we also want to have White get a number of snaps due to his expertise as a blocker but also his receiving ability. On top of this, we’ll have Watkins line up in the slot and try to work the middle of the field and generate some YAC as he has done successfully in his past few games.

Ultimately, our game plan comes down to putting a lot of stress on the OKC off-ball LBers as a positional group which we know we can exploit. The receiving threat of both Ertz and Cook, along with White coming out of the backfield will cause a lot of difficulties for OKC and with Thomas keeping the D honest despite presumably being in Peterson’s coverage, we’ll have oppprtunities for Ertz and Watkins to win their 1 v 1 matchups, or if extra resources are committed to stopping these guys and the middle of the field, we’ll take our chances with Cook and White as they look towards the sidelines on quicker routes.
 

Defense:

Although Melvin Gordon may not be at 100% on his return, we’re going to give due consideration to the threat of OKC’s running attack especially given it’s being headed by one of the greatest running QBs of all time. We are expecting him to be deployed again as a threat to catch us off guard, but with Chung in the starting line-up and Parks on the bench, our lighter shift should give us an opportunity to track the running backs moving around the field and also Newton. We feel we have a pretty decisive advantage with our defensive interior against the OKC interior OL and as such aren’t particularly concerned with their power run game, hence the lighter shift in personnel to counter what should be a wideout intensive passing attack, and outside intensive run game.

In terms of our personnel for the passing game, we’re going to have Gilmore matched up against Thielen, Harris will take Woods and Fuller on whichever other WR is starting, with the other CBs coming in as listed depending on the wide-receivers in the set. We’re confident in our receivers matching up one on one, particularly against the top 2 threats of OKC’s as although they are both performing at a high level, Gilmore and Harris are also at the top of their game and we know that with a defensive line that can get pressure against Newton, who isn’t the most accurate QB in the league, there’s certainly a fine margin for error to hit these guys in tight-coverage.

Hyde will play as our safety in a cover one, although not overly deep as we’re not too concerned about being beat deep. Of course he’ll provide support over the top should there be deep routes, but I don’t anticipate us being beaten deep given the lack of a prominent threat with Stills likely out or at least hampered.

Chung will be tasked with a TE if they come onto the field, or otherwise with the running-back out of the backfield, while Trevathan will keep tabs on Newton as a runner and provide support in the ground game, while also being utilised as a blitzer on the occasions we utilise stunts or have our edge rushers leave from wider positions to contain Newton’s escape and confining him to the pocket.

Lastly, our pass-rush will be heavily stunt based and feature 5-rushers for the most part. The idea behind stunting often is to ensure that we’re able to get to our excellent outside rushers to take advantage of a weaker OKC interior, while having Richardson and Casey work on the tackles and try to get wins based on their strength against a technically excellent duo. In particular we want to have Ford matching up against Schofield and JPP against Tomlinson where they’ll be able to add to their sack totals on the year and get Newton skittish. Newton’s success has historically come from having strong interior play, and OKC offers anything but at the moment.

Oklahoma City EF5s

 

This week we play one of the most important games of this regular season. At home, we get the opportunity to all but lock up the #1 seed for the BDL playoffs. Of course, important games do not come easy, as we face the most dominant franchise in recent memory, the Louisiana Jazz. This year, however, we believe we are the better team, and we are determined to prove it to all.

 

Offense:

We're going to use a variety of offensive concepts this week to throw the Louisiana defense off balance. In the end, we want to have a balanced offense across several formations.

In the first quarter of this game, we want to use the Smashmouth Spread concept that we used against Louisiana in week 2 in our shocking victory. Louisiana was obviously affected by this loss which was their only legitimate loss (no four OL auto-loss) in almost an entire year. We've been carefully preserving Cam Newton over the course of the past few weeks by using his mobility sparingly, and we're ready for him to take a few hits early in this game. We want to give Louisiana bad memories of their loss, demoralize them, and make them doubt their defensive system's ability to stop us.

Once we've had a few offensive possessions and Louisiana is beginning to think our read-option packages are predictable, we'll open up our spread playbook by passing against six-in-the-box where they expect the read-option. Louisiana recently shipped off Eli Apple leaving Orlando Scandrick alone as their 4^th CB option. Similar to last week, we want to move Adam Thielen and Robert Woods around often to try and find a matchup against this 4^th CB, but we like our matchups across the board with Scandrick. We will also feature D.J. Moore as an OW, giving him a few manufactured touches in space to let him work his RAC magic.

We also feel like we can be successful running 2 RB sets with Melvin Gordon back for this game. Joe Mixon and Gordon will both be featured as receivers as we try to match up against the Louisiana linebackers. These will be sprinkled in throughout the game and both runners will line up everywhere.

We also won't be afraid to run a 2 TE set and utilize both run and pass plays out of it. With no Anthony Barr, we expect a safety would have to play in the box against our 2 TE sets. This should give us enough of a size advantage to run the ball inside and out with our talented runners as well as pass deep out of play action.

Melvin Gordon will receive the majority of the snaps and carries, but Joe Mixon will ideally see the field about 50% of snaps with our 2 RB sets. We will not be afraid to lean on them both as much as possible depending on gameflow.

 

 

Defense:

This week on defense we will again utilize a coverage based defense with a four man rush. We will crowd the intermediate areas of the field to better defend against Ezekiel Elliot and the 2 tight end sets that Louisiana likes to feature.

On the outside, we will stick to what's worked for us over the past few weeks. Patrick Peterson will shadow their best receiver in Michael Thomas. Shaquill Griffin will play outside against either Sammy Watkins or Tyler Lockett. He will receive help over the top from Jordan Poyer.

Cameron Heyward, Eddie Goldman, and Stephon Tuitt will once again make up our down linemen. We like this bigger front as it'll help us better control the line of scrimmage in defense against Zeke. Von Miller will once again be allowed to roam and pick his matchup. Our pressure calls will revolve around what Miller thinks he can exploit.

Cory Littleton will captain as MLB and be a spy on Ezekiel Elliot out of the backfield. We believe our defensive line will pave things well for him and our other linebackers, and we feel Littleton can run with Zeke in the receiving game. Darron Lee and Lorenzo Alexander will rotate coverage on the tight ends with Adrian Amos playing in the box to help against Zach Ertz.

Alexander will come off the field for Bene' Benwikere against 3 WR sets. If Ertz is motioned out wide, Amos will follow him. His assigned linebacker, however, will remain in the box to help against the run and will cover a middle zone to help more against drags/slants from Ertz and Watkins.

[ny92mike]

This should have been the Game of the Week, with a surging Jazz team playing against an undefeated team at home.

Both teams present some solid game planning, so for me this comes down to the details.  I give Jazz the edge on their starting lineup because they included two tight ends in their line up and talked about it being a big part of their game plan.  OKC listed 4 receivers in their starting lineup, but outside of their two big names receivers, the depth hasn’t yet put up the numbers you’d expect them to have as listed starters.  I would have liked to see at least one of the tight ends from the bench listed as a starter, since it is talked about in their game plan.

I believe the Jazz talked enough about what it would take to limit OKC’s run game to include Cam Newton. 

I think the Jazz did enough to limit Von Miller and OKC doesn’t really talk about putting any pressure on Brady outside of Miller.  Would of like to see them do more to Brady.  This is Brady we’re talking about.  I don’t care how good the coverage is down field, if you aren’t getting pressure on him, he’ll eat you alive.

Anyway, I hated to even type what I did up because I believe both teams presented their teams well in the game planning this week.

[SirA1]

Lou-Lou with the upset this week. 

[Jlash]

Michael Thomas has shown he's match up proof, and I think Weezyana compensated well for the 'smashmouth spread' that did them in the first time. Ridiculous match up, but I think Whicker takes his first L here.

[Ragnarok]

Just like the Rams, OKC takes their first loss.

[DingoLadd]

OKC puts up a hell of a fight, they go down swinging but can't stop Brady when they need to most.

[RuskieTitan]

Damn this is a good game. I think Cam pulls out a superhero performance in the 4th.

[bcb1213]

I think Okc offensive plan kinda screwed up lukics rush five, spy one, cover 1.(ps that math either leaves one person uncovered or you're playing cover zero in my head).  In a close game I'm gonna go with the home team 

[PR]

Am I misreading something here? Lou starts 2 TEs to help pass protect and OKC rushes only four. This means everyone else is coverage which helps OKC for coverage but let's the opposing QB have time to throw. I think OKC hold Tom in check here despite harder to hit home with the rush.

[Xmad]

OKC's pass rush gets home despite the 2 TE help, their back seven isn't bulletproof but it will do it's job. Louisiana would probably win this matchup on their turf but OKC pulls out the close one at home.

[TedLavie]

Hyde is in cover one, 3 CBs on 3WRs, Chung on Gordon, Trevathan as a QB spy and 5 pass rushers. That leaves a weapon (Mixon or a WR) unattended. Louisiana DL should indeed beat OKC OL but if you leave a super easy checkdowm option to Cam it's not gonna matter much. Obvious gameplan mistake here that's gonna give the edge to OKC for me

[WFLukic]

Shame we have to play the same 11 players the entire time.

[Whicker]

15 hours ago, ny92mike said:

This should have been the Game of the Week,

After Ted's power ranking snubs, I'm used to the media bias.