BDL 2020 Week 6 - Berlin Blitzkrieg @ Rome Eternals

[rackcs]

BDL 2020 Week 6

Match: Berlin Blitzkrieg

Away Owner: @Ragnarok

Home Owner: @bcb1213

 

Vote for who you think would win the 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

[rackcs]

Berlin Blitzkrieg

QB - Aaron Rodgers
RB - Aaron Jones
WR - Odell Beckham Jr
WR - Marquise Brown
WR - Brandon Aiyuk
TE - Hunter Henry
LT - Kolton Miller
LG - Solomon Kindley
C - Corey Linsley
RG - Alex Cappa
RT - Tristan Wirfs

RB - Justin Jackson
RB - Anthony McFarland
TE - Irv Smith
WR - Damiere Byrd
WR - MVS
WR - Christian Kirk
OL - Taylor Moton
OL - Trey Hopkins

DE - Za’Darius Smith
DT - Sheldon Rankins
NT - Derrick Brown
DE - DeMarcus Lawrence
LB - Tremaine Edmunds
RCB - Rock Ya-Sin
LCB - Kendall Fuller
RNB - Byron Murphy
LNB - Lamarcus Joyner
S - Antoine Winfield Jr
S - Juan Thornhill

DE - Markus Golden
DE - Trey Hendrickson
DE - Zach Sieler
DT - Kingsley Keke
DT - Quinnen Williams
LB - Rashaan Evans
CB - Jeff Gladney
CB - Pierre Desir

Rome Eternals

QB Justin Herbert 
RB Phillip Lindsay 
WR Amari Cooper 
WR Juju Smith Schuster 
WR Jamison Crowder 
WR Will Fuller 
LT Andrew Whitworth 
LG Mike Iupati
C Brandon Linder 
RG Michael Onwenu 
RT Ryan Ramczyk

WR Hunter Renfrow 
TE Dan Arnold 
TE Tyler Eifert 
OT Braden Smith 
RB DeAndre Swift
RB Devonta Freeman 
OL Ted Karras 
QB Drew Brees 

DE Marcus Davenport 
DT Malik Jackson 
NT Dalvin Tomlinson 
DE Carlos Dunlap 
LB Matt Milano 
LB Alex Anzalone 
CB Marlon Humphrey 
CB William Jackson
CB Jamel Dean 
S Duron Harmon 
S Tre Boston 

Edge Dante Fowler Jr 
Edge Jaylon Ferguson 
INT Michael Brockers 
INT Malcolm Brown 
LB Jordan Hicks 
LB Devondre Campbell 
CB Nickel Robley Coleman
CB Anthony Averett 

[rackcs]

Berlin Blitzkrieg

Offense
Overview - 60% pass, 40% run.  Attack the edges of this defense.  Let Rodgers do this thing.

3 WR - 65% - We will mix up under-center and shotgun pretty evenly and run about 50% of the time from here.  We will use playaction from both sets to keep the defense honest.

Jones will run inside and out but we want to run plenty of our bread-and-butter stretch play that can allow Jones cut-back lanes.  Look for some tosses, draws, and screens to further confuse the defense.  With Takk out and Dunlap demoted IRL, we are going to attack the edges of this defense.

We are going to move our WRs around this week with each moving into and out of the slot to see which matchup we like best and get presnap reads.  Look for a fair amount of jet sweep and end around motion as we want to find ways to get the ball into their hands on a regular basis.  They will run every type of route as we trust Rodgers to read the defense and find the open man.  We won’t shy away from any of their DBs as we want to open up our offense.

At times, we will split out one or both of Henry and Jones.  This will allow us force their LBers to move in space and will allow us to make use of our motions and some quick screens.  For instance, Jones splits out left with Aiyuk and Hollywood then Henry splits out right with OBJ.  Aiyuk comes in a jet sweep motion from left to right.  If the defender doesn’t follow the motion, Rodgers gives the ball to Aiyuk and Henry/OBJ are out to block that side.  If the defender does follow, Rodgers can keep the ball and throw back left to Jones.

And sometimes we will use all this motion to suck up defenders and just go deep.

2 TE - 10% - Irv comes in.  We will run more heavily from here, but look for us to attack down the seam or out in the flat with a TE.  We will use this in more short yardage and goalline situation.

4 WR - 15% - One of Kirk or MVS comes in for Henry.  We think our 4th WR is better than the 4th Rome CB.  We will go more shotgun here and use Jones in draws and screens.  As with our 3 WR set, look for motions across the formation to show coverage, and then we will let our WRs run wild.

5 WR - 10% - OBJ, Hollywood, Aiyuk, MVS, and Kirk spread the defense out.  Rodgers will be our running game in this set as he will pick up easy yards, especially if their defense goes man.

Defense

Overview - Make Herbert hold the ball, remove the deep throw, and bait him into making mistakes.  If Brees plays, we will push our deep coverages up to remove his quick passing as we don't think he can effectively get the ball deep on a consistent basis.  

4 WR - Rome likes their 4 WR set.  We are going to match it with 6 DBs.  We are going to play Thornhill deep and Winfield about 10 yards off the line pre-snap.  That way Winfield can come up to help against the run, fit into a middle zone, or get back to his deep half.  We are also going to play sides, but obviously, if they go with a bunch formation, then the corresponding CB would move over.

This will also allow us to switch up our defense without giving up too much pre-snap.  We are going to run Cover-1 Man, Cover-2 Man, Cover-2 Zone, Cover-3, and some Cover-4.  We are going to run more Cover-2(both man and zone) and 3 because we don’t want give up chunk plays and force Herbert to dink and dunk to try to make him impatient.

If Rome tries to move a guy across the formation(or have a bunch formation) and we have zone called, we will still have a defender move across the formation and then have that defender drop into Winfield’s zone.  For instance, if we have Cover-3 called, Joyner may follow his WR across the formation and then drop back into what should have been Winfield’s zone and Winfield will slide over to what would have been Joyner’s zone.

If Tremaine doesn’t have a zone, he is going to be following the RB everywhere.

The goal here is to force the QB to hold the ball long enough for our pass rush to get home and/or get the QB to misread the defense and give us a turnover or two.  We are going to rotate our DL pretty regularly to keep guys fresh so Herbert doesn’t get a break.  Look for more man Cover 2 on 3rd downs to lock down their guys and force the incompletion.

3 WR - Rashaan comes in for Joyner and will take the RB in man coverage while Tremaine takes the other RB or TE.  The rest of the concepts remain the same with us mixing up Cover-1, 2(man and zone), and Cover 3.

2 TE - If they go 2 TE, we will have Winfield play up like an additional LB, and Joyner will come in to play the other safety spot.

5 WR - We will keep the same personnel as dime and play more zone coverage.

Rome Eternals

Motivation 

We are back in another must win game.  After a frustrating loss last week it's win or basically be eliminated with our division strength.  We've been practicing hard and will bring maximum effort 

 Offense 

We continue to roll four wide as it puts our best personnel on the field. It also lightens the box so our RB have more room to operate behind bdls premiere offensive line.  Regular formations allows more big bodies to be inside while spread allows for one cut and go running which our RB specialize at. 

The four wide allows us to help Herbert in his presnap reads.  Berlin has limited corner talent so we feel they will be playing a lot of zone. We will be motioning a wr into trips formation to get a read on zone or man coverage. Our RB will be on the opposite side of the trips. If no one goes with the WR you are going to see a plethora of WR screens and rpo game against an undermanned side.  If the corner goes with them we kno we are looking at man and will use some combo routes to create traffic for the corners to fight through. It also will lead to more inside handoffs and read option.  We'll use a lot of drags and slants against man to just keep moving the chains and keep their d out there. If it's all cover one, Herbert will air it out to fuller, juju crowder and Amari.  We will attack all the non fuller CB in man coverage as rock is a zone coverage corner, Murphys recently got demoted out of the starting formation, and Gladney has not performed well in the early part of his career.  Our wr are all performing on a high level 

We also will be utilizing a pistol formation with two RB a TE and two WR.  Freeman will line up next to Herbert in this formation with swift behind him.  We will be running a triple option out of this formation.  Herbert first read will be the opposite edge, if he crashes it goes to the outside for a speed option. If he'd stands up its an inside hand off to the freeman.  Once we get Herbert and swift in space it'll be the lb choice to go after Justin, which will lead to a pitch or to the go after swift which will lead to Justin turning it up the field. After a couple of these looks we will play action and try to  hit a deep shot on the sin side of the field using his aggressiveness against him. 

 Out of four wide our running game will come from draws and delays This puts even more pressure on the edges and can buy more time as we get Herbert on the move as well as the dline will have to be alert after we run it all few times.  Delays and draws work especially well against zone as the lb are moving backwards first. Also look for a handful of jet sweeps to our wr play makers on our motion to catch the defense napping and make them account for something else  Lindsay/Swift go 60/40 minus short yards where freeman will get the work. RB will be on blitz alert first before going out for their routes. In zone heavy scheme we will also utilize a plethora of RB and wr screens as an extension of the run game 

Up front we have a great tackle group to minimize their edges and we believe our middle three can hold their own against blitzes.  We of course also have our floods and seams to go with the rpo and wr screens for zone coverage. The RB or inside trip wr is the hot route for blitzes.  We also have our two TE six o line look for short yardage. 

Tl/dr: 

Lightening the box to allow easy running.  Presnap motion to determine coverage.  Attack corners with wr talent in man. Screens and floods against zones 

Defense 

This week we face off against Aaron Godgers and a solid supporting cast 

Luckily for us their biggest weapon is OBJ but we have his kryptonite in Marlon Humphrey who shadows OBJ in real life and has held him to under 100 total yards in the three games they have played since he's come to the Cleveland.  No matter where he goes Humphrey will go with him. 

With OBJ neutralized we can concentrate  on stopping Aaron Jones.  We have two really good run stopping ends and we plan on setting the edges and forcing Jones inside.  Berlin loves stretch plays and tosses so setting the edge is an important step in stopping this running game 

Up front we will rotate our d linemen and keep everyone fresh.  Our main target on their offensive line is soloman kindley who is not bdl startable at the moment.  We will line our nt in between the center G  to eat up their blocks which leaves Malik Jackson one on one with kindley.  Jackson is one of the best interior pass rushers in the game and we expect to get push right up to the middle with him.  With our ends setting the edge, it will prevents Rodgers from escaping the pushed in pocket and should lead to sacks.  

Our other coverage assignment for man include Jamel Dean going  speed for speed with Hollywood.  He will have first safety look help over the top from Boston.  Jackson get Ayiuk or whoever wr 3 is.  Nrc gets Ayiuk in four wide with Jackson taking kirk or mvs with averett coming on in five wide.  Matt Milano is in charge of Aaron Jones and has shown to excel in coverage while Anzalone gets the tight end.  In two tight end formations, Jackson comes off for Campbell who gets irv Smith.  We will mix cover one and cover two man pretty often with Harmon sometimes blitzing when in the box on the cover one look.  Him being in the same box can also help us disguised the cover three the few times we've plan to to use it.  

We will incorporate some zone blitzes and occasional cover three and four looks as you can't show a veteran like Rodgers the same look every play, but, we like our man look against this offense 

Tl/dr. Keep the running game inside.  Trust the corners.  Pressure up the gut 

[Ragnarok]

Matt Milano is out today.

[bcb1213]

Luckily lb is the one position I have really good depth. Jordan Hicks next man up with anzalone taking Milano role 

[bcb1213]

Bump 

[Ragnarok]

1 hour ago, bcb1213 said:

Bump 

Boop

[Scoundrel]

1 minute ago, Ragnarok said:

Boop

Beep

[Blue]

What a chess match. I thought Rags made a great call playing zone against Herbert, and then Bcb calls it and accounts for it. I almost don't want to vote on this. At the end of the day, two pick day aside, I still have to go with the veteran Rodgers making more plays and fewer mistakes than Justin Herbert.

[Scoundrel]

14 hours ago, Blue said:

What a chess match. I thought Rags made a great call playing zone against Herbert, and then Bcb calls it and accounts for it. I almost don't want to vote on this. At the end of the day, two pick day aside, I still have to go with the veteran Rodgers making more plays and fewer mistakes than Justin Herbert.

This is what I was thinking when I was reading through the plans. I think Rodgers our duels Herbert in this one but Rome has a bright future at QB. Rock ya Sin gets beat a couple times in this game but lucky for Berlin they have a safety duo that can erase some errors on the back end. 

[TedLavie]

I think Berlin may be the best team in BDL right now and I don't see Rome being able to beat them at full strength tbh. Sure Humphrey had success vs OBJ but it seems OBJ is playing much better now than he ever did in CLV so I'm curious about how it would work IRL nowadays. I don't think Rome necessarily have the DL talent to constantly beat Berlin OL which I find good and they have relying too much on their rookie QB to make things happen against a mix of coverage that should confuse him. 

37-24 Berlin

[Jlash]

On 10/19/2020 at 12:55 PM, rackcs said:

If Rome tries to move a guy across the formation(or have a bunch formation) and we have zone called, we will still have a defender move across the formation and then have that defender drop into Winfield’s zone.

 

On 10/19/2020 at 12:55 PM, rackcs said:

We will be motioning a wr into trips formation to get a read on zone or man coverage.

How well do you two know each other? 

This match up was awesome. Went with Rome. I don't think Berlin will have the success they think they're going to have running at the edges, mainly because Carlos Dunlap is one of the more underrated DE's in the game and they won't get anywhere against him and that will make that play 1 dimensional. The difference to me is how well, IMO, the corners of Rome will be able to control the Berlin WR's in this game. That's important.

[bcb1213]

26 minutes ago, Jlash said:

 

How well do you two know each other? 

This match up was awesome. Went with Rome. I don't think Berlin will have the success they think they're going to have running at the edges, mainly because Carlos Dunlap is one of the more underrated DE's in the game and they won't get anywhere against him and that will make that play 1 dimensional. The difference to me is how well, IMO, the corners of Rome will be able to control the Berlin WR's in this game. That's important.

Well we have played each other twice a year for like 5 years now lol 

[bcb1213]

The only issue is when you have dudes out of position to start a zone play there is a huge gap.  The seam is gonna be wide open off the snap in cover three as Winfield will be headed to the flat while Joyner sprints from the wrong side of the field.  This is an easy read for any qb as Winfield has no other reason to be running straight to the sidelines at the snap unless it's zone and we have planned on attacking... The seam 

[Ragnarok]

1 hour ago, bcb1213 said:

The only issue is when you have dudes out of position to start a zone play there is a huge gap.  The seam is gonna be wide open off the snap in cover three as Winfield will be headed to the flat while Joyner sprints from the wrong side of the field.  This is an easy read for any qb as Winfield has no other reason to be running straight to the sidelines at the snap unless it's zone and we have planned on attacking... The seam 

Joyner will be dropping back into a middle zone which will slot him in perfectly.  There won't be huge gaps cause guys are just moving into a zone near where they already are.  If I tried to have them move across the field, yeah, you'd have a point.  But i did it this way for a reason.