BDL 2018 Week 9 - Seoul Dragons @ Portland Horned Owls

[ny92mike]

BDL 2018 Week 9

Match:  Seoul Dragons @ Portland Horned Owls

Away Owner:  @TedLavie

Home Owner: @SwoleXmad

           

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.

For members, who have been following along, and wish to vote.  Please join the conversation and maybe give a reason you voted as you did. This will alleviate any suspicions of unusual voting and will promote discussion.

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]

Seoul Dragons

QB Matt Ryan

RB Kenyan Drake

WR AJ Green

WR TY Hilton

WR Danny Amendola

TE Travis Kelce

LT DJ Humphries

LG Rodger Saffold

C Alex Mack

RG Kevin Zeitler

RT Ryan Schraeder

 

Bench RB Jordan Howard

Bench RB Spencer Ware

Bench WR Tyrell Williams

Bench WR Jermaine Kearse

Bench WR Keke Coutee (Q)

Bench TE Antonio Gates

Bench TE Jeff Heuerman

Bench OL David Andrews

 

LE Bradley Chubb

DT Gerald McCoy (Q)

DT Geno Atkins

RE Melvin Ingram

SLB Nigel Bradham

MLB Jordan Hicks

CB Darius Slay (Q)

CB Ronald Darby

CB Kendall Fuller

FS Marcus Williams

FS Justin Reid

 

Bench Edge Romeo Okwara

Bench Edge Chris Long

Bench Int Steve McLendon 

Bench LB Donta’ Hightower (Q)

Bench LB Shaq Thompson 

Bench CB Pierre Desir

Bench CB Taron Johnson

Bench S Terell Edmunds

 

Portland Horned Owls

 

QB1: Patrick Mahomes II
RB1: Peyton Barber
WR1: Davante Adams
WR2: Tyler Boyd
WR3: Mohamed Sanu 
TE1: Austin Hooper
LT: Alejandro Villanueva
LG: Clint Boling
C:  Matt Paradis
RG: Will Hernandez
RT: Laremy Tunsil 

Reserves:

QB2: Andy Dalton
RB2: LeSean McCoy - (Q)
RB3: Josh Adams
WR4: Brandon Powell
WR5: Martavis Bryant
TE2: Charles Clay
OL6: Ben Jones
OL7: Kelvin Beachum

Portland's 4-2-5 Defense:

DE:  Brian Orakpo
3T:  Kawann Short
DT:  DaQuan Jones
DE:  Za'Darius Smith
WLB: Telvin Smith 
MLB: Blake Martinez
CB1: Desmond Trufant
CB2: Jimmy Smith
SCB: Brandon Carr
FS: Glover Quin
SS: Malcolm Jenkins

Reserves:

SLB: Zach Brown
RLB: Vince Williams
CB4: Kareem Jackson
CB5: Johnathan Joeseph
S3:  Jason McCourty
DE3: Shaq Barrett
NT:  Michael Pierce
DL:  Shelby Harris

[ny92mike]

Seoul Dragons

Motivation

We want to crush them, make them regret to have been ever placed in our division. We won’t ever stop pushing the gas pedal, and will run up the score if possible.

Offense

Balanced offense.Unlike the last few weeks, we want to go with a balanced offense this week. Portland has two weaknesses, its corners and its defensive line. We want to use our running game to take advantage of the latter. Drake and Howard will see a 45/45 split in carries with Ware taking the 10% remaining. We think we can dominate Portland upfront and will use that to our advantage. We will run mostly outside through stretches and tosses, pulling our athletic guards out, but we will run inside too, doubling Short. If Harris and Short are both in the middle of the DL, then we will avoid it and run outside, where we feel we have the advantage.

Target Portland corners.Portland has good players at safety and LB, but their corners aren’t as good. So we want to target them. Portland usually mix zone and man pretty evenly, so we will not overly complicate our routes today, aiming mostly at routes outside the numbers, using flood concepts too to outnumber Portland defenders in their cover 3 or cover 2 if they’re running zone. AJ Green (who will see around 15 targets this week vs Trufant or Smith) and TY Hilton get the start outside to reflect that, while Amendola gets the start in the slot and will run short or intermediate routes outside.

As always, expect some rotations as all our receivers will see the field in certain situations. Kearse to move the chains, Williams to go deep, Gates on 3^rddown and RZ, and Heuerman in heavier packages. Keke Coutee involvement will be decided depending on its health. The better he can move, the more snaps he will see, exclusively in the slot.

Play around with Kelce.Of course, and despite Portland quality in the middle of the field, our best weapon is Travis Kelce. We will motion him a lot in this game. If Portland is in man and he’s followed around by Telvin Smith (even more so if doubled with Jenkins), that will leave a light box against which we will be able to run on. If they stay in zone, then we can either kick him back in line to run the ball or leave him outside and run routes outside in the aforementioned flood concepts. We like him in man to man vs Smith or Jenkins, so if he’s isolated outside, we feel that works in our favour.

Protect Matty Ice. Without a great pass rushing threat to worry about, we will alternate assignments on the OL. In general, Mack is responsible for blitz pickups. We will sometimes double Short, sometimes slide proection on a side (ZaDarius Smith when he’s on the field or Orakpo). If necessary, Howard or Drake can stay in pass pro or run delayed routes, but we would prefer them included in our receiving arsenal, on short routes outside.

 

Defense

Contain Mahomes in the pocket.Portland OL isn’t the greatest, and we expect our DL to dominate, inside and outside. However, we know Mahomes is capable of escaping outside and throw darts to open receivers. Our defensive linemen, especially our edge rushers, will focus on keeping him in the pocket, when, under pressure, he can make bad decisions and throw turnovers. If Ingram and Chubb (and Okwara/long who will heavily rotate), can succeed there, and with Atkins and McCoy in the middle (With McLendon in on around 40% of the snaps), we know can limit Mahomes and this offense. We are selling out against the pass in this one as we believe we can stop Portland rushing attack with our front 6/7 against a hobbled McCoy, a newly acquired Josh Adams and a bad Peyton Barber

Off man coverage with Adams doubled.  Mahomes has great talent, but he has underwhelming weapons at his disposal. The best one is by far Davante Adams, who will be doubled on almost every play, with Darby under him and Marcus Williams over. Darius Slay (or Pierre Desir if out) will be the other outside corner and man up Boyd/Bryant. Kendall Fuller is our nickel back, and Taron Johnson is our dime. Bradham gets Hooper in coverage, Hicks has McCoy. In 2TE sets or in 1RB 1 FB sets, Hightower (Thompson if out) comes in for Fuller. There will be some zone coverages mixed in, cover 2 or cover 3, but not many. If Portland wants to surprise us with no RB sets, we will be in nickel (if 2TE 3WR) or in dime (for 4+ WR packages) and will either use man coverage (with a TE) or zone (in 5WR sets) with some blitzing involved.

Blitzing strategy. With Adams doubled, we have a free player, Justin Reid, who will play mostly centerfield, trying to intercept overthrows by Mahomes. However, we will run some blitzes (15% of the time), using him to compensate for a blitzer. We will also fake some LB blitzes with the backed dropping back in the middle of the field, like Hightower did in the NE/KC game, to confuse PMII and force him to make rookie mistakes.

 

Portland Horned Owls

Motivation:

• Seoul is our biggest rival and since the team moved to Portland, we have not beaten them. We look to change that this week by engaging in a shootout we think we can win.

Portland Offensive Gameplan:

• We're going to let Mahomes run wild in this one, expect Davante Adams to get 15+ Targets with Tyler Boyd mixing in for 10+ as well, we'll focus on moving the ball through the air and operating out of the shotgun for most of the game. We'll run the ball with McCoy occasionally but we're going to open up our passing game this week and let the Mahomes Magic beat Seoul.

The Passing Game: 

• Mahomes has established himself as a top 3 QB in the NFL so we feel he can more or less do anything asked of him, Mahomes will be be allowed to audible and adjust plays as he sees fit and we'll focus on getting deep against a Seoul secondary featuring some of the worst cover LBs and DBs in BDL.
• Seoul's edge rushers are fairly solid while their interior line is as stout as they come however we feel our o-line is up to the task of keeping Mahomes protected. If we can't get anything going deep we'll attack the middle of the field specifically targeting Pierre Desir and Hightower in coverage, Davante Adams will be our no.1 WR and will be featured heavily and with Slay covering him he should be able to beat him like he does IRL.
• Boyd will be our slot WR and he'll see quite a few targets this week, he'll play outside in 2 WR sets and in the slot in 3 wide. In 3 and 4 WR sets Sanu will be the no.3 and Powell will be the no.4, we'll take a few deep shots to Boyd+Adams to try and take advantage of Seoul's issues in the secondary.
• Austin Hooper will get the nod at TE and will be a do it all TE but he'll mostly be limited to being a check down option for Mahomes and a blocker when needed, he'll get a bunch of targets since we feel he's a mismatch and is finally coming into his own this season after being a 5-50-1 guy for most of his career. Charles Clay will exist as the no.2 TE and will rarely see snaps unless we bring out 2 TE sets.
• We'll feature our RBs in the passing game a bit to keep Seoul guessing, McCoy is healthy and despite being stuck in the bill's "offense" he has played well. Peyton Barber will be our no.1 RB and despite what his stats suggest he is a functional RB who can do all the things required of him, we'll split the touches about 60:40 to keep Barber fresh and healthy and get Barber some touches so he can shave off some yards on Seoul's defense.

The Running Game:

• LeSean McCoy and Barber will split carries 60:40 with Barber receiving the edge in carries and touches, we'll try and establish our running game early to help tire out Seouls defense for later in the game, we'll leave a RB/TE in to pass protect as needed.

The Blocking:

• In case of injuries, Beachum will play LT/RT, Jones will play C/G. We'll also leave a RB/TE in to pass protect or give extra attention/blocking to a pass rusher if someone proves to be a problem, most likely we'll slide extra protection to Ingram or  double team their interior lineman..

TDLR;

• Attack Seoul's secondary deep, focus on getting the ball into our WR's hands, Make plays in the redzone, Mahomes Magic or something.

Portland Defensive Gameplan:

• We're going to play 2 deep safeties to keep Green+Hilton+Kelce from making big plays down the field. We'll mostly be playing zone coverage while mixing in some man with Cover 3 being our base zone defense and containing their WRs and Kelce.

Pass Coverage: 

• We'll be playing zone defense on 50% of the snaps with a decent amount of blitzes, we'll probably blitz on at least 25% of the snaps to get after Ryan and disrupt Seoul's offense. Trufant will shadow Green in both man and zone he'll also get some help over the with Green for a decent chunk of the game, Jimmy Smith will man the no.2 CB spot and should be able to handle whoever he is assigned to cover on the play. If Hilton/Green go into the slot the CB/Defender assigned to cover them will follow them into the slot, Brandon Carr otherwise will be the no.3 CB/Slot CB.
• Seouls offense is easily among the best in BDL and we'll treat it as such by devoting extra attention to their pass catchers,  Matt Ryan is no slouch but we feel our secondary is capable of covering his weapons in this game. Given Ryan's focus on forcing it to the no.1 WR we'll make sure to double Green the entire game, along with having Jenkins cover Kelce for most of the game.
• As mentioned we'll be using 2 deep safeties and a cover 3 base zone defense for most of the game, Glover Quinn will be tasked with adjusting the pass coverage as needed, I'd expect my front seven should be able to put pressure on Ryan and control the LOS.
• Telvin Smith will be the signal caller on defense and he'll make adjustments if Seoul tries something not outlined in the gameplan.  Orakpo+Smith will be able to get after Ryan along with Barrett rotating in, Short+Jones should be able to keep Seoul's inside running game in check and Pierce will rotate in with Jones on running downs/goaline situations.
• Telvin Smith will make adjustments as the signal caller on defense as needed, we'll make sure to give equal attention to Seouls top 2 WRs as well as try to take away Ryan's checkdown options to his RBs and TEs. 

Run Defense: 

• Seoul's RBs are fairly solid with Howard being the best of the bunch, we should be able to contain Howard+Drake+Mongometry fairly easily given our front seven is more than capable of containing the running lanes and winning at the LOS.
• Za'Darius Smith stepped up in a huge way 3 weeks ago with 3 sacks, he has earned a starting job opposite Orakpo and has already set/tied a career high in sacks, he'll be a big help in the run game and in getting after the QB.
• Our focus isn't in defending the run it's in defending the pass so don't expect us to sell out to stop it here however if Seoul starts to come out run heavy in the first half we'll adjust to that by bringing in heavier d-lineman.
• Play Zone, Win our match-ups, Limit their weapons as much as possible, Blitz on 20% of the snaps, keep them out of the endzone, don't be afraid to give up big plays in favor of turnovers/sacks, Keep their WRs in check.

TLDR; Contain the run, Keep Ryan from checking down, keep their WRs in check, Control the passing lanes, Get after Ryan early on, get turnovers.

[TedLavie]

31 minutes ago, ny92mike said:

We're going to play 2 deep safeties to keep Green+Hilton+Kelce from making big plays down the field. We'll mostly be playing zone coverage while mixing in some man with Cover 3 being our base zone defense and containing their WRs and Kelce.

 

33 minutes ago, ny92mike said:

along with having Jenkins cover Kelce for most of the game.

So 2 deep safeties but play in cover 3 and in man Kelce is covered by Jenkins? Makes no sense

 

35 minutes ago, ny92mike said:

Jimmy Smith will man the no.2 CB spot and should be able to handle whoever he is assigned to cover on the play

Since his return from injury, Jimmy Smith can't cover anyone. So TY Hilton? Yikes

 

37 minutes ago, ny92mike said:

make sure to give equal attention to Seouls top 2 WRs

No you don't, you have Green doubled with, I assume, Glover Quinn, and Jenkins on Kelce, so you have Hilton in single coverage.

[Xmad]

1 hour ago, TedLavie said:

 

So 2 deep safeties but play in cover 3 and in man Kelce is covered by Jenkins? Makes no sense

 

Since his return from injury, Jimmy Smith can't cover anyone. So TY Hilton? Yikes

 

No you don't, you have Green doubled with, I assume, Glover Quinn, and Jenkins on Kelce, so you have Hilton in single coverage.

You do realize coverage changes depending on the play right? Defenders change assignments as the coverage changes.

I don't see where it says Jimmy Smith is covering Hilton on every play either.

I'm not assigning multiple safeties to Kelce, Hilton will still get doubled just not as often as Green would. 

[TedLavie]

2 minutes ago, SwoleXmad said:

You do realize coverage changes depending on the play right? Defenders change assignments as the coverage changes.

I don't see where it says Jimmy Smith is covering Hilton on every play either.

I'm not assigning multiple safeties to Kelce, Hilton will still get doubled just not as often as Green would. 

Yes I do. Let's say you're running a cover 3 in zone, so you'd have 2 deep safeties in man. Then Jenkins can't man up Kelce. Or you have Jenkins on Kelce and you don't have 2 deep safeties. If both, then you have Jenkins on Kelce on around 25% of the snaps, not "most of the game"

Also this is simple not possible

2 hours ago, ny92mike said:

As mentioned we'll be using 2 deep safeties and a cover 3 base zone defense for most of the game

 

[Xmad]

7 minutes ago, TedLavie said:

Yes I do. Let's say you're running a cover 3 in zone, so you'd have 2 deep safeties in man. Then Jenkins can't man up Kelce. Or you have Jenkins on Kelce and you don't have 2 deep safeties. If both, then you have Jenkins on Kelce on around 25% of the snaps, not "most of the game"

Also this is simple not possible

 

Not on every snap... that's just the default coverage. 

We're obviously using more than just 2 types of coverage, press man, off man in 3rd & longs, zone blitzes,  etc.I don't know the exact percentages but we're not locked into those 2 coverages they're just the ones we'll use for more than 50% of the snaps. 

[TedLavie]

1 hour ago, SwoleXmad said:

Not on every snap... that's just the default coverage. 

We're obviously using more than just 2 types of coverage, press man, off man in 3rd & longs, zone blitzes,  etc.I don't know the exact percentages but we're not locked into those 2 coverages they're just the ones we'll use for more than 50% of the snaps. 

I'm not talking about every snap. I'm talking default coverage. And you're not consistent.

In your default coverage you have

• Cover 3 in zone
• two deep safeties - I'm assuming in man coverage since you're running a cover 3 in zone
• Jenkins on Kelce
• Green doubled with Trufant and a safety

In zone, Jenkins isn't necessarily on Kelce, but he's not deep neither since it's a cover 3, but if he's in man, he therefore can't be the deep safety.

Also that means Trufant + a safety in on Green, who's doubled, Jenkins on Kelce, and therefore single coverage on Hilton by Jimmy Smith.

[Xmad]

9 minutes ago, TedLavie said:

I'm not talking about every snap. I'm talking default coverage. And you're not consistent.

In your default coverage you have

• Cover 3 in zone
• two deep safeties - I'm assuming in man coverage since you're running a cover 3 in zone
• Jenkins on Kelce
• Green doubled with Trufant and a safety

In zone, Jenkins isn't necessarily on Kelce, but he's not deep neither since it's a cover 3, but if he's in man, he therefore can't be the deep safety.

Also that means Trufant + a safety in on Green, who's doubled, Jenkins on Kelce, and therefore single coverage on Hilton by Jimmy Smith.

Two deep safeties would be man, Jenkins isn't always on Kelce and even then someone obviously takes his deep assignment when he does cover Kelce and Green isn't always doubled (I know I said the entire game, but you can't double a WR on every play so assume like 65% of the snaps) Jimmy Smith is more than capable of covering Hilton in single coverage. 

 

[ny92mike]

I think Seoul is still struggling to find their running game, they have a solid passing game and can see them getting ahead and keeping the lead.

Portland is leaning on the magic of Mahomes to get them a win, but this team simply doesn’t have the same or similar pieces that KC has and it’s hard to see him having the same success. 

I understand that the game planning is limited in creativity but Portland’s plan seems to be always the word for word plan with only minor changes.  Got to take points off for being unoriginal as if this was run irl, opponents would have this figured out as if they were in the huddle.

[Xmad]

3 hours ago, ny92mike said:

I think Seoul is still struggling to find their running game, they have a solid passing game and can see them getting ahead and keeping the lead.

Portland is leaning on the magic of Mahomes to get them a win, but this team simply doesn’t have the same or similar pieces that KC has and it’s hard to see him having the same success. 

I understand that the game planning is limited in creativity but Portland’s plan seems to be always the word for word plan with only minor changes.  Got to take points off for being unoriginal as if this was run irl, opponents would have this figured out as if they were in the huddle.

How dare y-

 

Nah you're right. Just haven't had the time to write up an entirely new gameplan each week, wanted to do one especially for this matchup given Seoul owns my team's soul at this point but it was just one of those weeks. 

[SirA1]

Seoul gets the win because of better weapons.

Mahomes will be someone to build on for Portland next year.

[Jlash]

I think both run games struggle mightily, but I think Seoul planned a little better for this game with similar weapons and pulls it out.

[DingoLadd]

The mahomes magic makes the Portland offense disappear into the turf, Seoul has the better offense and defense here so they grind out the win. 

[Whicker]

I would definitely like to see Portland's gameplan cleaned up. Ted makes a lot of good points about it being jumbled and it is something I've noticed for a couple weeks.

Portland is very close to winning this game. They are at home. Mahomes is MVP. Davante Adams is playing well and Boyd/Sanu are worthwhile options. I really like their back seven as well and I think they can contain Seoul's weapons with the proper matchups. Seoul's O-line is also not that great this week with Stanley out and Schraeder not playing super well this year.

Seoul definitely output the better gameplan. As much as I don't like their running backs, I think they were correct in going a balanced offense this week.

This will be a low scoring game IMO. Seoul's O-line gets beat in pass protection on the edges, Portland secondary is good enough to contain Seoul's receiving options, and Kenyan Drake/Jordan Howard are Kenyan Drake and Jordan Howard. Portland has an equally unexciting******** run game, but none of their receiving weapons go off, either.

With a cleaner gameplan, Portland wins. As it is, I think there's confusion in coverage on a couple of plays, and Seoul uses that to pull away in a tight game.