BDL 2019 Week 4 - Seoul Dragons @ Berlin Blitzkrieg

[Whicker]

BDL 2019 Week 4

Match:  Seoul Dragons @ Berlin Blitzkrieg

Away Owner: @TedLavie

Home Owner: @Ragnarok

Vote for who you think will win this game.

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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

[Whicker]

Seoul Dragons

QB Kyler Murray

RB David Johnson

WR Demarcus Robinson

WR Tyrell Williams

WR TY Hilton (Q) *INACTIVE*

TE Travis Kelce

LT Ronnie Stanley

LG Rodger Saffold

C Austin Reiter

RG Mike Person

RT Donald Penn

 

Bench RB Jordan Howard

Bench RB Kenyan Drake

Bench RB Chase Edmonds

Bench RB Wayne Gallman

Bench WR Jamison Crowder

Bench WR Mack Hollins

Bench TE Austin Hooper

Bench OL Laurent Duvernay Tardiff

 

DE Bradley Chubb

DT Grady Jarett

DT Linval Joseph

DE Melvin Ingram

WLB Shaq Thompson

MLB Damian Wilson

CB Darius Slay (Q) *INACTIVE*

CB Levi Wallace

CB Kendall Fuller

FS Marcus Williams

SS Justin Reid

 

Bench Edge Romeo Okwara

Bench Edge Derek Barnett

Bench Int Maliek Collins

Bench Int Eddie Goldman

Bench LB Nigel Bradham

Bench CB Sidney Jones

Bench CB Taron Johnson (Q) *INACTIVE*

Bench CB Quincy Wilson

 

 

Berlin Blitzkrieg

Offense
QB - Tom Brady
RB - Aaron Jones
Slot - Chris Godwin
WR - Kenny Golladay
WR - Will Fuller
Slot - Marquise Brown
LT - Kolton Miller
LG - Dan Feeney
C - Corey Linsley
RG - Alex Cappa
RT - Taylor Moton

RB - Corey Clement
WR - MVS
TE - Irv Smith Jr.
TE - Adam Shaheen
TE - Jordan Akins
OG - AJ Cann
OC - Ryan Kalil

Defense
DE - Justin Houston
DT - Leonard Williams
DT - Taven Bryan
DE - Demarcus Lawrence
OLB - Tremaine Edmunds
MLB - Rashaan Evans
OLB - Blake Cashman
CB - Gareon Conley
CB - Byron Murphy
S - Tarvarius Moore
S - Juan Thornhill

DE - Deatrich Wise
DE - Za’Darius Smith
DE - Trey Hendrickson
CB/S - Damontae Kazee
CB/S - Lamarcus Joyner
CB - Mike Hilton

Edited September 30, 2019 by Whicker

[Whicker]

Seoul Dragons

Offense

 

Attack downfield.It’s Kyler time! Murray is still a rookie and makes some mistakes but he gives us better downfield passing ability and that’s what we’re aiming at here. Quite frankly, Berlin secondary isn’t good and they will probably have to mask those deficiencies with some sort of zone coverage. Doesn’t matter to us, we will run a bunch of deep routes with Tyrell, Robinson and Hilton if he can play. DeMarcus Robinson and Tyrell Williams are playing outside and Hilton inside. Robinson has dominated Conley week 2 so if they’re matched up 1vs1 Kyler will look for that matchup. Tyrell has a significant size advantage on Conley and Murphy, so he will be targeted on 50/50 jump balls, even against a cover 3. As for Hilton, if he’s healthy, he will target the deep middle of the field and use his speed to beat Berlin FS. If Hilton doesn’t play, he’ll be replace by a mix of Crowder, Hooper, Mack Hollins and Kenyan Drake. We won’t use Hooper or Crowder deep, but Mack Hollins/Kenyan Drake, while certainly not world beaters, have the speed we’re looking for in this strategy

 

Kelce option routes. Travis Kelce is our X Factor in this game. With a lot of WR routes going deep, Kelce will be asked to recognize Berlin scheme on any given play and chose the corresponding route. Cover 3? If our inside WR goes deep, he goes deep as well, giving us 4 guys vs 3 there. If our inside WR goes on a short route, then Kelce will aim at a corner route so that Murray can use a pump fake to freeze Berlin CB, and then target either Kelce or the outside WR depending on what the CB does. Cover 2 zone or man? Go deep. Cover 4 or Tampa 2? Come back to the middle of the field. Kelce’s job will be to recognize the movement of the MLB and the SS and adjust his route. It’s complex but he’s an experienced guy and our leader offensively, we trust him with that.

 

Run the ball.We will run a balanced attack in this game for several reasons. First, it gives us opportunities to sell the playaction pass. Second, it will ease up Murray debut as a BDL starter. Third, Berlin DL has a good pass rush we want to slow them down and not allow them to be overaggressive. Finally, Berlin has some injuries on the DL and we don’t think the depth is as good as it might have been week 1. We will rotate in David Johnson and Jordan Howard, with Gallman and Drake playing some snaps too. If Hilton is out, we will have 2 RBs on the field more than planned with Drake or David Johnson lining up as receiver. Our running game will be balanced, so we want to target Berlin starting unit outside, especially Houston, and Berlin depth inside, especially if Daniels is out.

 

Protect Murray.Obviously because of our aggressive plan pass protection will be key. We hope our running game can put some pressure off Murray, but anyway we will have, more often than not, a RB staying in pass pro or at least going on a delayed route to prevent Berlin blitzing too aggressively. We will often slide protection towards the right side of our line and Donald Penn, especially vs Lawrence. Murray will also have the option to escape the pocket and run for some yardage, hopefully our downfield passing strategy leaves some open space for him to run to. We've inserted Edmonds in the lineup as we like his pass protection abilities and he will play some snaps there exclusively on passing downs.

 

 

Defense

 

Rush the passer.After two weeks of facing strong rushing teams, we face a team that has suffered injuries at RB and which is driven by its passing game. If they want to hand off the ball to Aaron Jones instead having Tom Brady passing that’s fine by us, but we expect a pass heavy strategy from Berlin. As for any game vs Brady, it’s key to pressure him without having to blitz. Our starting until is listed in the lineup, but in reality we will have a lot of rotation and try to have at least one, often 2 or even 3 guys from that starting unit on the field. We like pretty much all of matchups upfront so we will keep it simple and attack relentlessly.

 

Mixing coverages.It’s very important against Brady to mix coverage. We will mix in cover 2 man, cover 2 zone, cover 3, cover 6 and cover 1 robber coverage while keeping the same alignments pre-snap (save for bunch formations, coming later). We will have our two safeties lined up deep every play, and we will have our outside corners lined up in the face of their opponents more often than not. We will try, if the scheme allows us too and especially in cover 2, to jam outside receivers at the line, giving more time for our rush to get home. In terms of personnel, Slay (Sidney Jones if he’s out) and Wallace play outside and follow respectively Golladay (if inside) and Fuller. Fuller plays inside as well as Jones (Taron Johnson if Slay out), and Fuller gets Golladay coverage if he lines up inside. Whenever Hollywood Brown plays, we’ll run a scheme that puts more people deep as we are afraid of his speed. Wilson gets the TE, Shaq Thompson the RB, Bradham the TE2/RB2, Johnson/Wilson the WR5. We will not blitz often, we will throw some here and there to keep Brady guessing. Never more than 1 blitzer though.

 

Beating bunch formations. Apparently, bunch/trips formations are the new fashionable scheme in BDL and Berlin follows that trend. In the empty side of the bunch we’re putting Levi Wallace and Justin Reid deep eliminating the possibility of a 1vs1 with a receiver whose speed we can’t match. On the other side we will have Slay/Jones outside, in front of the outside WR, a slot CB in front of the inside WR/TE and Marcus Williams deep. Jones/Johnson or Shaq it it’s a 3WR formation, will play almost as the Mike LB, though we’ll have them a little deeper and a tad more outside than a usual Mike. It gives up the possibility to crowd the box, especially on early downs or 3^rdand manageable distance. The outside CB has responsibility of the outside zone or route if man. Marcus Williams has deep responsibilities. In man, the inside CB has the responsibility of the man in the middle and the player lined up as Mike as the first inside route responsibility. In zone, we’ll have an unbalanced cover 6 with 3 players (Slay, inside CB, player lined up as Mike), covering 60 % of the field, with Damian Wilson covering 40% of the empty field. That should limit the zone flooding opportunities, but we will obviously put pressure on our DL as the more the play extends, the more dangerous it gets.

 

 

Berlin Blitzkrieg

Offense
The CBs of Seoul are pretty banged up right now with Slay, Darby, and Taron out, so we are going to attack them relentlessly.

We will run enough to not be completely predictable, look for Aaron to get 15-18 carries and 5-8 targets in the pass game.  We want to use a number of draws and screens to slow down the pass rush.  Clement will be used as a 3rd down back to give Aaron some rest and for his blocking capabilities.

4 WR - Our base set for this game, we will have Brady in shotgun a fair amount to make sure he has time against a good defensive front.  We will use our bunch set again so our WRs can get a free release.  We want to use a lot of crossers, slants, WR screens to supplement our rushing game and get the ball out quickly.  We will run more draws and screens in this set as our rushing attack.  Jones will also help block as needed.  MVS will rotate in to keep guys fresh.

We will put a man in motion to give Brady information pre-snap.  If they are in man, we will use our bunches to rub off defenders and get quick hitting crossing routes and option routes that Brady excels at.  If it is zone, we will use those bunches to flood a zone and give Brady a more open target.  

Look for a fair number of deep shots to stretch their defense vertically because we don’t think their secondary can match up with us deep.

3 WR - We will use this set around 25% with Irv as our TE/H-Back coming in for Fuller or Marquise.  We want to force another LB onto the field as we like Irv’s matchup with them.  Look for a more traditional rushing attack to compliment the passing game.

We will take our deep shots here as well to force them to keep both safeties back and open things up underneath.

2 TE - We use this set around 25% of the time with Irv and Akins.  The LBs of Seoul are also banged up, so we want to force them onto the field.  We are going to target the LBs in coverage a fair bit.  We will also have a more traditional rushing attack in from this set.

Fuller/Golladay and Hollywood will be our WRs.  If Seoul tries to put an 8th man in the box in this set, we will throw it deep to one of these two.  We trust Hollywood and Fuller to either win deep when one-on-one or Golladay to win a jump ball or back shoulder throw.  And a single high safety won’t be much use as none have the speed to get over and help in time.  This inability to get a numbers advantage in the run game will help us grind out some longer drives to aid our defense and close out the game.

Defense -
No Green and no T.Y.  So we are going to focus on shutting down Kelce and the run game.

We are banged up at DT, no denying that.  We are going to put Leonard Williams directly over Saffold because Saffold has been awful this year.  We are also going to rotate Trey/Z/Wise in at DT to keep our guys fresh.

2 TE - We expect a fair amount of 2 TE sets with Kelce and Gerald/Hooper.  We are going to play more Cover 1 this week.  Murphy and Gareon take their outside WRs.  Cashman and Tarvarius double Kelce.  We will literally treat him like he is a gunner on a punt and make him fight to get off the LOS every snap.  Tremaine will follow Hooper/Everett all over the field as he has the athletic ability to limit them.  Thornhill is going to play deep shaded to Tyrell’s side to remove the deep ball threat as we don’t fear any of their other active WRs.

This will give us 8 men in the box to defend the run.  Rashaan Evans will be keyed into the RB and follow him everywhere.

We will on occasion play some Cover 3 just to switch it up, but Cashman/Tarvarius will still play Kelce the same at the LOS before dropping back into their zones.

3 WR - If they do this for some reason, Kazee comes in for Cashman and takes the slot WR.  Tremaine and Tarvarius take Kelce in coverage.  Juan is deep shaded to Tyrell’s side.

 

[TedLavie]

Hilton, Slay and Taron out, as Rags said in his gameplan. Next men up

[TedLavie]

13 hours ago, Whicker said:

We are going to put Leonard Williams directly over Saffold because Saffold has been awful this year

I doubt it matters, but this is ironic coming from someone who last week tried to make us believe Dan Feeney was good

[VigilantZombie]

Very much like in the Camden/NO game, this comes down to bad luck/timing. Berlin gets a mighty advantage of playing a team that is just plain beat with injuries and as such, will compete for a bit but ultimately the aggressive approach of Berlin will prove too much for the Seoul defense to handle.

31-17 Berlin

[Scoundrel]

Berlin beats up on a battered Seoul. Berlin is going to be a tough team to beat in the playoffs. 

[Jlash]

Poor Ted. Like I said with Orca and Pickle Rick, I feel your pain. A combo of good weapons paired against major injuries in a sprint that Seoul just can't keep up.

[Whicker]

Despite the large quarterback advantage for Seoul in this game, I just don't see them winning (on the road) with that secondary against Brady and a WR group that's overall playing well.

[Pickle Rick]

Blocking looks pretty solid for Berlin, Cappa having a solid performance would help to solidify the front and give Tom Brady time to go work the DB's of Seoul. Mixing coverage won't help much if you can't get to the QB.  Just too much missing in the passing game for Seoul to make a big impact on the scoring.  

Berlin probably pulls away pretty easy 31-17

[SirA1]

Lineup - Berlin; Performance - Berlin; Gameplan - Berlin

Berlin 28-14

[Xmad]

Berlin and company get the job done against a weakend Seoul. 

[The Orca]

Berlin wins this running away laughing... Brady has time to throw and at that point there is no stopping Berlin. Kyler Murray has some growing pains, puts up some respectable numbers to build on

Berlin 35-14

[PR]

Kendall Fuller versus those weapons is going to have a long day. Great tackler, weak in coverage. His coach mentiones he was dinged up as well though it we dont know exactly when that occurred.

[pheltzbahr]

Lots of holes and unprovens on Seoul.  Berlin carries it easy.