BDL 2019 Week 3 - Cuba Smugglers @ Lancaster Werewolves

[Whicker]

BDL 2019 Week 3

Match:  Cuba Smuggers @ Lancaster Werewolves

Away Owner: @MD4L

Home Owner: @rackcs

Vote for who you think will win this game.

Rules:
One vote per person, duplicate accounts will be banned and action taken against those attempting to rig the results.

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

[Whicker]

Cuba Smugglers

QB: DeShaun Watson 
RB: Dalvin Cook 
WR: Julio Jones 
WR: Brandin Cooks 
WR: DJ Chark
TE: Jesse James 
LT: Anthony Castonzo
LG: Laken Tomlinson 
C: Alex Mack
RG: David DeCastro
RT: Rob Havenstein 

RB: Jaylen Samuels 
RB: Darwin Thompson 
WR: Kenny Stills
Flex: Taysom Hill 
WR: Chester Rogers
TE: Ian Thomas 
OL: Ryan Jansen
RB: TJ Yeldon

Edge: Jerry Hughes 
DT: Jurrell Casey 
NT: Fletcher Cox 
Edge: Kyle Van Noy 
WLB: KJ Wright
MLB: Eric Kendricks 
RCB: Isaiah Oliver
NCB: Kenny Moore 
FS: Rodney McLeod 
SS: Tyrann Mathieu 
LCB: Richard Sherman

DE: Arik Armstead
NT: Derrick Nnadi 
SLB: De’Vondre Campbell 
DE: Denico Autry
Edge: Carl Nassib
NCB: Anthony Brown 
SS: Ronnie Harrison 

RCB: Kevin Johnson

 

 

Lancaster Werewolves

QB1: Philip Rivers
RB1: Alvin Kamara
WR1: Mike Evans
WR2: Odell Beckham Jr. 
WR3: Willie Snead
TE1: C.J. Uzomah
LT: Trenton Brown (Q)
LG: Frank Ragnow
C: Mike Pouncey
RG: Quenton Nelson
RT: Lane Johnson

QB2: Baker Mayfield
RB2: Christopher Carson
RB3: Royce Freeman
WR4: Sterling Shepard
WR5: Dante Pettis
TE2: Mike Gesicki
OL: Nick Martin
OL: Connor Williams - starts at RT if Brown is out with Johnson going to LT

DE: T.J. Watt
DT: Kenny Clark
DT: Ndamukong Suh
DE: Joey Bosa
WLB: Kwon Alexander
MLB: Bobby Wagner
CB1: Jalen Ramsey
CB2: James Bradberry
SCB: Kevin King
FS: Eddie Jackson
SS: Keanu Neal

DE: Clelin Ferrell
DE: Emmanuel Ogbah
INT: Christian Wilkins
INT: Tyquan Lewis
LB: Fred Warner
CB: Jaire Alexander
S: Taylor Rapp
S: John Cyprien

[Whicker]

Cuba Smugglers

This week is going to be a challenge for many reasons. We’re going against a new chairman with limited information as to how he’ll scheme things up. That being said we’ve played Racks led team many years ago, so there’s prior info to base from. We look forward to the game. This is another week against an elite team. 

 

Offense

It starts with Watson on offense. He’s our best chance at getting down field consistently because the personnel around him. Julio Jones against Jalen Ramsey is going to be a key factor in how the game is decided. We aren’t shying from Ramsey at all. We’re planning to target Julio double digit times and letting things play itself out. I think Ramsey can make some plays and even an interception. We’ll accept that reality as Julio isn’t getting completely shut down by anyone, especially in single coverage. If by chance he’s doubled, the target share could drop a bit, particularly if Ramsey is the one getting extra help. 

Cooks will definitely make an impact in this game because of Ramsey/Julio competing against each other. We are going to line them up next to each other and use rub routes to dodge press coverage. Unless Jaire Alexander is shadowing Cooks, we definitely should see a spike in his targets this week. If it’s James Bradberry or Kevin King, we are going to let Cooks run a handful of crossing routes and deep in cuts at ten yards so he can win in the middle of the field. Of course the best asset of Cooks is his deep speed and Watson has the arm to get it there. When Eddie Jackson isn’t actively on top of Cooks assignment we like that matchup and should help Watson put up points in what may be a high scoring game. DJ Chark is the new big play weapon. Aside from being a deep threat capable of stretching the field, he’s been efficient by capitalizing on those opportunities. We figure our offensive line will give Watson time to make reads. Watson offers enough elusiveness to buy extra time, and we’re hoping a target to Chark can change the game. He is a screen weapon who also runs flats. The big play aspect is featured when he runs deep.

 

Ultimately, our team is lead by Dalvin Cook who leads the team in touches. He’s been impactful and offers more big play ability. Bobby Wagner is a capable playmaker. We still think Cook can churn out yards with the offensive line in front of him. Moving between zone and man blocking concepts creates enough variety that Cook can escape a talented defensive line and hit the second level. Cook also creates some misdirection opportunities where DeShaun Watson can run bootlegs to get into a rhythm on cheaper routes to guys like Taysom Hill or Kenny Stills. It also offers read option opportunities in the redzone. Watson has two rushing TDs this season for a reason. With the weapons we provide outside, it should open up enough one on one opportunities for our receivers to win their matchups. In Watson we trust!

 

TLDR: Balanced offense, establish counters and sweeps for Dalvin Cook. Allow DeShaun Watson to target Julio Jones in intermediate routs on the boundary. Switching between the slot opens up DJ Chark and Brandin Cooks to isolate themselves in one on one coverage. Allow Watson to audible into run plays against two safeties deep. Aiming for about 10 targets of over 20 yards.

 

Defense

We would prefer this to be a high scoring game, as a complement of Lancaster’s offense. They will score points so the grade of our defense will be based on our ability to get critical stops, rather than the sheer volume of stats. This is a big play offense that can also drive down the field with methodical drives. 

The biggest factor figures to be stopping their receivers, particularly Odell Beckham Jr. We consider him a premier weapon by all evaluations. Instead of letting Sherman shadow him, we will dedicate two people around him in man coverage frequently. Isaiah Oliver will cover him in the boundary and Kenny Moore in the slot. Tyrann Mathieu plays over top coverage. Mathieu will play deep more than we have assigned him in our first two games. Mathieu is effectively sticking with whomever has responsibility covering Beckham Jr. We figure to keep 4 CBs a bit more than usual because Alvin Kamara is a brilliant weapon as a receiver. Anthony Brown or Kenny Moore may see Kamara on a couple plays if he’s flexed as a receiver. Ideally Kamara is matched up in coverage with a CB and Rodney McLeod deep in two man under schemes (2 zones and man coverage across the board) if he is in the slot at the snap of the ball.

Mike Evans is the third weapon we want to stop and that is exactly what makes this offense hard to stop. We figure Richard Sherman will get a chance to effectively shadow him around. We do not intend to confuse Rivers frequently with coverage alignments from our CBs because the weapons are clearly our focus as a defense. Sherman will however alternate with press and off coverage. Occasionally he will get help from McLeod. The safety coverage will be deep often but when we have four CBs in the game a blitz by the slot not covering Beckham is more useful as an alternative coverage rather than the less frequently used zone cover 3 defense we usually use.

With a heavy investment on stopping their receivers, our defensive line faces a good offensive line. Fletcher Cox is going to be huge because he can make it difficult for interior linemen to hit the second level. Jurrell Casey is a similarly imposing defender but we want to rotate our DL so they aren’t gassed should Lancaster decide to frequently run the ball. Derrick Nnadi will come in on more run based defenses next to Fletcher Cox. Arik Armstead will be significantly more involved as he creates a nice alternative to starting edge Kyle Van Noy and gives a variety of different assignments for Lane Johnson. Whereas our secondary is straight up in alignment, the way Van Noy lines up serves as a joker role. He may occasionally move to LB on a 1-5-5 formation where the pass rushers (Hughes, Van Noy, De’Vondre Campbell, Denico Autry) all stand up and move around presnap to make things harder on Rivers to get comfortable in the pocket. On the aforementioned formation, Fletcher Cox would be the one surefire pass rusher.

That formation is special. Our base formations will feature 4 DL with 2 LBs. Van Noy and Armstead switch at the edge position. Eric Kendricks and KJ Wright will get most of the reps at LB. We figure to occasionally switch Wright with Van Noy for blitz packages. De’Vondre Campbell mixes in when we go with a 4-3, regardless of who else is in the game. Most of their work will be stopping the run that may be a bit more active considering our coverage on the backend. In coverage we hope to get KJ Wright actively against C.J. Uzomah. We might get him against Eric Kendricks or Kyle Van Noy at a couple points and we’re fine with that matchup. If any LB will cover Alvin Kamara, it will be KJ Wright. Christopher Carson is a talented backup, so again it’s useful that our LBs be focused on primarily making open field tackles with guys like Fletcher Cox occupying blockers.

 

 

Lancaster Werewolves

Carolina Offensive Strategy: This week we want to make things the Alvin Kamara show. Obviously we’ll still be utilizing the passing attack but we feel like Kamara can have success both in the ground and passing game with this matchup. The ratio should be something along the lines of 65% running to 35% passing.

The Running Strategy: Cuba has a strong interior DL with Casey and Cox. We’ll be looking to avoid them by running to the outside often, where we feel we’ll have much more success. We feel like their DE’s are not as strong against the run and that if Kamara can get some speed going and get to that second level he can break off plenty of big plays. We’ll also obviously be giving a couple of breathers to Kamara so he doesn’t get too gassed by using our backups to keep things going.

The Passing Strategy: The big thing for the passing game is that we’re going to be using the success of the run game to help open up the passing game. With Kamara theoretically being a running threat out of the backfield, we should be able to get our strong duo of OBJ and Evans plenty of good looks when needed. On top of that we’ll have Willie Snead taking the top off of the defense. This will of course in turn help the running game because they can’t stack the box. As Kamara is the focal point of the offense in this matchup, we plan to get him involved in the passing game as well, throwing him passes where he's got space to make moves and break off big gains. Finally, we'll be using plenty of play action once we've established the run to keep the defense on their toes and likely catch them slipping a few times. Even though Kamara is going to be the star of the show, Rivers will still be able to sling it if necessary and should have success due to Kamara’s own success running the ball.

Carolina Defensive Strategy: Cuba’s strength is in their offensive weapons. They have one of the best WR corps in the BDL. Despite this we still believe we can contain Cuba’s offense for the most part through talent and scheme. Our secondary matches up very well with their weapons and we’ll be running a zone to make sure that we’re covering all parts of the field instead of trying to have everyone trying to man up on players. As for the run game, we’re just going to trust our players to make the plays necessary to stop Dalvin Cook.

The Pass Defense Strategy: We’ll be running a nickel Cover 3 zone. Last week Jlash may not have won but we feel that this is the right thing schematically to cover all of Cuba's weapons. This will help us cover all parts of the field and works to our players strengths. The way this coverage scheme will mainly shake out can be seen below in this very original and never before seen informative gif (thanks Jlash, sorry for stealing the gif):

 
While we’re not going to completely stifle the Cuba passing game we think this should work well in terms of stopping big plays. One big strength of this scheme is also that we can play around with who covers the zones in order to keep Watson guessing. We feel that we'll be able to get a decent amount of pressure on Watson as well without blitzing, particularly with the matchup of our DE's against his OT's.

The Run Defense Strategy: Dalvin Cook has shown great breakaway ability so far this season but we feel that with our strong DL, we can keep him fairly bottled up. We have a deep, good rotation of defensive lineman, all of whom can play the run well. We'll be rotating in our backups a decent amount to keep our guys fresh and ready to attack the line of scrimmage. Beyond that, having four guys playing zone closer to the line should hopefully help limit big plays.

[Xmad]

Will come back to this one. 

[Scoundrel]

Lancaster in a very close one. Like last second close. Like hold your breath close. Like possibly in OT close.

[Jlash]

Look at the graphics I used last week getting borrowed. I'm flattered!

Edited September 25, 2019 by Jlash

[VigilantZombie]

I like Cuba in a last second come from behind win. 28-27

[Ragnarok]

Aside from TE, both offenses are very good.  Lancaster has the superior defensive front 6, and should be more effective at the LOS.  So I'm not sure Cuba will get as many deep throws as they hope.  Lancaster has more big names in the secondary, but Cuba's secondary is pretty solid.  Although I have NO clue why Lancaster isn't starting Jaire.  That's a really bad mistake.  

I like Lancaster running off tackle and focusing the game plan around Kamara.  And the zone should help limit Watson's running.  

I thought I would like Dalvin running counters and sweeps more, but a zone defense should help as guys can see and react more quickly.  But if Lancaster is in Cover 3 all game, Watson should be able to exploit that at times, especially on those Cooks crossing routes.

I'm torn.  On one hand, it doesn't seem like Lancaster is devoting enough to Dalvin which could be a mistake(although just trusting Wagner and Kwon isn't that bad) and they aren't playing their 2nd best DB in Jaire and I think King and Bradberry have some issues.

On the other hand, I almost think Cuba is trying to do too much.  I'm not sure how they will be able to actually accomplish everything they are trying to pull off.  

Imma think on this one.

[MD4L]

3 hours ago, Ragnarok said:

I'm not sure how they will be able to actually accomplish everything they are trying to pull off.  

What do you wanna know?

[Whicker]

This is a very good game and is a likely playoff/Bizzbowl preview. One of those games where I hate to pick a winner and I’m sure I’ll have second thoughts as soon as I vote. 

I think Cuba’s gameplan got a little muddled when it came to defending Kamara. He wants a CB on him when he’s split out wide but KJ Wright when he’s lined up at RB. Either you’re running Anthony Brown on last second (which won’t work) or Wright ends up on Snead which is a mismatch. I may have misunderstood, but Lancaster doesn’t utilize Kamara as a wideout in this game, instead opting for him as a running threat for PA (which isn’t a mistake in a vacuum but worked against him here) so it’s kind of a moot point either way. 

I am a big fan of the remainder of the Cuba defensive plan and I think they effectively limit the two top receiving threats for Lancaster. I think their creative formations allow for some cheap pressures also. 

I think Lancaster overworked Kamara in this one. 65% running plays is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 carries or more. This plus an involvement in the pass game means he’s touching the ball more times than anyone I remember. 

Lancaster should definitely start Jaire and I believe Bradberry hurts them in this one. I also am of the opinion that Cover-3 isn’t the best option for defending Cuba and I think Lancaster’s corners lend themselves to a man-coverage scheme rather than zone. I think they can limit the run with Wagner and Neal in the box. 

I’m going to give this one to Cuba. I think Kamara has a good game but he can’t do it all alone as I feel Beckham and Evans are well contained on limited targets. Cuba finds enough favorable one on ones in its deep passing game to out gun Lancaster 

[TedLavie]

Two of the best offenses, maybe the two best, in BDL. great matchup. I'm still undecided as I write this on so let's see.

On offense, I think Lancaster overuses Kamara. While I like the plan to run outside, I think you need to use Carson/freeman a bit more as multiplying touches, as a runner and receiver, will work out in your defavour in the 2nd half as Kamara may be gassed. I really enjoyed what MD4L is doing upfront. They don't have star edge players, but they have a ton of versatile ones. I think they can manufacture pressure by their scheme. Coverage is an issue though. I like Evans to get some catches even vs Sherman. Kamara is either lined up vs a McLeod if I understood correctly, which is a mistmatch, or a CB subs in for Kendricks which will only help Lancaster running game. Even the double coverage on ODB is a challenge. I think ODB makes a ton of short catches vs Olliver and get YAC to keep the ball moving. Also unsure how they will work in the RZ, which is a big goal of Cuba. One last point, I don't know why Snead is used as a deep threat here. He's avergaing 12.5 yds per catch in his career, which is closer to Jarvis Landry territory than Mike Evans, and ran a 4.6 in combine. That doesn't scream deep threat to me.

 

On the other side, it's a more straight up matchup. With the quality of Cuba QB and weapons, it's important for Lancaster to pressure Watson to make their zone work. They have a great DL and while Cuba OL is really good as well, I think they win more than they lose here, especially on the edge. Issue for Lancaster will be the rotation. With Cuba heavy running plan, Lancaster will need to keep their guys fresh. And Ferrell, Wilkins or Tyquan Lewis are a huge downgrade over their starting lineup. I like Cook quite a bit here, even if Lancaster LB duo should limit the damage.

 

Very balanced matchup, I think Lancaster starts strong but Cuba finishes stronger. I went with Lancaster in the end for two reasons. 1. Homefield advantage. 2. I think they execute a bit better in the RZ because of their superior ability to create pressure with 4 and their man coverage ability.

35-31 as Lancaster barely holds on.

 

[rackcs]

To the people saying Kamara will get 65+% of the touches, that's not accurate. We'll just be running 65% of the time. And I specifically mentioned that we'll be using his two backups specifically so he doesn't too gassed. Fair points and I'm not saying that your overall judgement against me is wrong but just wanted to point that part out.

[TedLavie]

17 minutes ago, rackcs said:

To the people saying Kamara will get 65+% of the touches, that's not accurate. We'll just be running 65% of the time. And I specifically mentioned that we'll be using his two backups specifically so he doesn't too gassed. Fair points and I'm not saying that your overall judgement against me is wrong but just wanted to point that part out.

I didn't read 65% of the touches. But I read 65% of running plays, with a lot of Kamara (when I read I understand 75% to 80% of the time). Plus touches as a receiver (maybe 20-25% from what I read). That's him touching the ball on around 55 to 60 % of the snaps, so around 40 touches on a 70 snaps basis. That's a lot especially for a back that has never really received such a workload. The more he got in his career is 31. 

[bcb1213]

Cuba wants to to lean on the vertical passing game but I think it the Lancaster edges have their way with Havsnsteain who has been dreadful this season.   Both teams should score points but I thinking the cover three bends more then breaks with the pressure Watson will be under 

!Lancaster 35-27

[Jlash]

So if Mathieu is over the top all game on OBJ and McLeod is also playing deep safety that would play right into the hands of what Lancaster's offensive focus is going to be wouldn't it?

These two offenses are so stacked it's unreal. Lancaster has the better secondary, and Cuba's interior disruptor (Cox) must be hurt something because he's playing nowhere near his level this year. This combined with racks offensive strategy matching up very well I see Lancaster winning a shootout.