BDL 2020 Week 10 - Ivory Coast Black Rhinos @ Berlin Blitzkrieg

[rackcs]

BDL 2020 Week 10

Match: Ivory Coast Black Rhinos @ Berlin Blitzkrieg

Away Owner: @RuskieTitan

Home Owner: @Ragnarok

 

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]

Ivory Coast Black Rhinos

Offense
QB- Ryan Tannehill
RB- Nick Chubb
WR- Terry McLaurin
WR- Robby Anderson
WR- Chase Claypool
TE- Jared Cook
LT- Trent Williams
LG- Damien Lewis
C- Jason Kelce
RG- Zack Martin
RT- Dennis Kelly

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Offense Bench
RB- Ezekiel Elliott
RB- Chase Edmonds
RB- Wayne Gallman
WR- Corey Davis
TE- Kyle Rudolph
OL- Ricky Wagner
OL- Josh Jones
OL- Billy Price

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Defense 
DE- Khalil Mack
DT- Da'Ron Payne
DT- Larry Ogunjobi
DE- Myles Garrett
OLB- Lavonte David
MLB- Patrick Queen
OLB- Devin White
CB- Patrick Peterson
CB- Jaylon Johnson
S- Jordan Whitehead
S- Devin McCourty

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Defense Bench
DE- Chase Young
DT- Charles Omenihu
LB- Bobby Okereke
CB- A.J. Terrell
CB- Bradley Roby
CB- Darnay Holmes
S- Ashtyn Davis
S- Troy Apke

Berlin Blitzkrieg

QB - Aaron Rodgers
RB - Aaron Jones
WR - Robert Woods
WR - Christian Kirk
WR - Brandon Aiyuk
TE - Hunter Henry
LT - Tristan Wirfs
LG - Solomon Kindley
C - Corey Linsley
RG - Alex Cappa
RT - Taylor Moton

RB - Dare Ogunbowale
RB - Anthony McFarlan
WR - Damiere Byrd
WR - MVS
WR - Marquise Brown
TE - Jordan Akins
OL - Alex Lewis
OL - Dan Feeney

DE - Za’Darius Smith
DT - Da’Shawn Hand
NT - Derrick Brown
DE - DeMarcus Lawrence
LB - Tremaine Edmunds
LB - Rashaan Evans
RCB - Rock Ya-Sin
LCB - Kendall Fuller
NB - Byron Murphy
S - Antoine Winfield Jr
S - Juan Thornhill

DE - Deatrich Wise
DE - Trey Hendrickson
DE - Zach Sieler
DT - Kingsley Keke
LB - Kyzir White
CB - Lamarcus Joyner
CB - Jeff Gladney
S - Tarvarius Moore

[rackcs]

Ivory Coast Black Rhinos

Offense
Primary Formation: 11 Personnel Single Back- We come out in a standard 3-wide, 1 running back set as our primary formation. We plan on being balanced for this game, with most snaps being taken under center with a single back. On short yardage we will bring in Kyle Rudolph as an additional blocker, and take Robby Anderson out. We’ll be using motion on most plays, with the exceptions being during a hurry-up (inside 2 minutes, quick snap on short yardage for 3^rd down).

Running Game Focus- We welcome back Trent Williams off the covid list, and we also welcome back Nick Chubb. With Chubb, we are going to monitor his carries, and see how he’s feeling during the game. He’s going to get the start, and we aim to have him receive about 15-20 touches, if he’s showing up in true form and dominate, we will continue to feed the hot hand, but if he’s still working the rust off we’ll give Ezekiel Elliot more touches to make up for it. Chubb or Zeke will be the primary back on 90% of the snaps, but we will mix in a few looks where both line up in the backfield with Tannehill out of shotgun, in a variation of an RPO where one will potentially get the handoff while the other comes out of the backfield as a receiving target. Berlin has a solid defensive front, but with our offensive line fully intact we believe we can win at the line of scrimmage and establish a solid running game. We want to be balanced with the run and the pass, and as the game goes on, we will leverage the running game to set up playaction passes. We’ll also have some jet sweep passes via motion while in shotgun to one of the receivers, and some quick bubble screens that will act like an extension of the running game. On very short yardage and goal line situations we’ll bring in Kyle Rudolph as an additional in-line blocker (who will on occasion run a route too), but again, leveraging our motion.

Passing Game Focus- We’re going to come out with our starting trio of McLaurin, Anderson, and Claypool. All three will rotate who ends up in the slot and who ends up outside. Jared Cook will be our primary tight end, and we will leverage him in a variety of ways, both on the line and split out wide. As mentioned previously, we will be using motion on most plays pre-snap, and some of those motions will be snapped during the process, to get our man into space quicker. The snaps in motion will be those plays where we want to use a jet sweep pass to the man coming across the line. We’ll also have a handful of quick bubble screens thrown to the motion man coming across the line. The motion man will mostly be one of the receivers or tight end, but on a few plays we’ll also motion our running back to be split out wide, and see if we can’t get a mismatch pass play to the back. During the game as we establish drives and progress into the later quarters we will be leveraging play action passes and bootlegs with Tannehill, to get the defense to bite on the run and hit a deep play or a 1-on-1 matchup with one of our receivers. It’ll also allow Tannehill to tuck the ball and run if the receivers are covered and he sees open field. When Rashaan Evans is out on the field, we’ll see what assignment he draws in coverage, and try to attack that. If we see more man coverage, we’ll see who is getting some 1-on-1 looks and attack those opportunities, as we feel our receivers will win more matchups against Berlin’s secondary than potentially lose. If we’re seeing more zone-heavy concepts, we’ll leverage flood routes and force the defense to make decisions on who to cover – i.e. running a man on a corner route with another man underneath running an out route. Corey Davis will be getting snaps in relief of the starting trio as they rotate to keep them fresh (McLaurin can handle 90%, Anderson and Claypool 80%, with Corey Davis and Kyle Rudolph picking up the other snaps).

X-Factor on Offense: Motion- As poorly as the Titans appeared on Thursday night, their pre-snap movement is virtually identical to what I am attempting to illustrate with our gameplan here. We’ll be using pre-snap motion heavily, some of it to set up the immediate play and some of it simply to change how the defense gets aligned, and gives them something else to think about. If they fail to shift to account for the motion, we’ll take advantage of it. It’ll also help identify pre-snap whether the defense is likely to lean towards man coverage or zone coverage.

 

Defense
Defensive Formation: 4-3 Defense- We come out with a 4-3 front if Berlin runs a 2-receiver primary set. When Berlin brings in a third receiver, Patrick Queen will come out and A.J. Terrell will come in. On four wide sets, Devin White will come out and Bradley Roby will come in.

Secondary Coverage: Robber Man-Under Scheme- We unleash one of the most devastating defensive schemes to ever grace BDL: The Robber. Here is a refresher course:

With regards to the FS and SS responsibilities, Devin McCourty and Jordan Whitehead will alternate those duties, to avoid tipping off Rodgers pre-snap. Underneath the zone coverages we will be playing man. Besides this scheme, we’ll also leverage some pure Cover-1 looks with the safety taking one of the linebacker responsibilities and giving us a blitzer with that linebacker; we will also have some true cover-2 man under looks, and some cover-3 zones with the outside corners taking the deep thirds. We won’t go with specific matchups or shadows this game, so man coverage will be passed off to avoid tipping off Rodgers.

Defensive Box- We’ll come out with a 4-3 alignment. Our interior line got a bit banged up, so we’re going to try and off-set that by rotating Mack, Garrett, Young, and Omenihu in the interior on third and long plays. We’ll continue to try to leverage our edge Hydra on obvious passing downs (3^rd and 7+) with getting all three of Mack, Garrett, and Young on the field at the same time. Lavonte David and Devin White will cover the tight ends, with Patrick Queen taking the running back. On Nickel situations, Devin White and Lavonte David will alternate duties on TEs/RBs; whoever is covering the running back has permission to come blitz if he stays in to block. We’ll also have a few of our signature A-gap blitzes with both David and White rushing at the same time (DE – DT – LB – LB – DT – DE). Our defensive tackles will be playing more two-gap responsibilities, to clog up the running lanes and not open up the pocket for Rodgers to step up and scramble up the middle. We want to try and keep bodies off the linebackers to make plays. Our edge players are going to play both the run and the pass, and we’re sure we’ll be able to generate pressure off the edge without having to worry about that aspect: Tristan Wirfs may have shined for his rookie season, but Mack made him look like a rag doll, and Kolton Miller is nursing an ankle injury.

X-Factor on Defense: Watch This Video-

 

Berlin Blitzkrieg

Offense

Overview - Use a quick passing attack, run inside, exhaust their DTs.

We are making a change this week with Kirk getting the start over Hollywood.  We think he is better suited for what we want to do this week.  That said, Hollywood will still rotate in pretty regularly in 3 WR sets.

3 WR - 60% - We are going to move Aiyuk, Woods, and Kirk in and out of the slot throughout the game to challenge the CBs of IC.  We are going to have our slot WR use jet sweep and end around motion 40% to force their LBs to cover the entire field and their DL to have to run when we hand it off.  We will also have the outside WR come in motion another 40% of the time so that we get a read on coverage.  This will still allow the slot WR to that side a two-way release.

We are going to have our WRs and Henry run lots of rubs, slants, outs, and crossers as those are man coverage beaters and they will allow Rodgers to find gaps in any zone coverage we may see.  With the edge rushers of IC and Kolton out, we want to start with routes that allow Rodgers to read and get the ball out early.

Henry is going to be split out frequently to both sides.  This will 1. get another defender out of the box  2. force a LB or S to cover him in space and 3.  allow him to serve as a blocker for WR screens.  We will have him cross with the WR to his side regularly to rub off the defender and allow that WR to come free to the inside.  Plus, Rodgers loves hitting the TE to the flat.

We are going to go away from our stretch play a bit this week as we want to attack the interior of the IC DL.  With Payne and Ogunjobi as the only active interior DL, we are going to run lots of inside run plays off the jet sweep motion which the LBs will have to respect.  This will allow Linsley to double team with one of the OGs before moving up to the second level.  We want those two DTs absolutely exhausted early in the game.  This will also help us in the pass game because they won’t be able to get an effective pass rush if exhausted.  We are going to use a number of draws and screens early on to make their DL stay honest to their assignments and try to chase down Jones.

We will also incorporate a number of rollouts, typically to the TE side, on plays when Henry lines up in-line so that he can help seal the DE to his side before releasing into a route so Rodgers can get outside the pocket and potentially pick up cheap yards with his legs.

We will also take some deep shots, usually off double moves following playaction, once their CBs start to press up more and more.  We think their CBs can be susceptible to a double move, so that’s how we will get our chunk plays.  We will typically keep in Henry or Jones to help block on these plays with the other releasing late to serve as a checkdown.

4 WR - 35% - Hollywood comes in for Henry to force IC to put a 4th CB on the field.  We will continue to incorporate pre-snap motion against a spread out defense and to allow for a free release.  We will be almost exclusively in shotgun here.  We want to attack the secondary with every type of route in a backyard football style but we will have a couple WRs running underneath routes at all times.  We will use Jones on draws, screens, and quick flare routes to slow down the outside pass rush.

We will use trips to one side with Aiyuk, Woods, and Kirk bunched up.  We will use them for screens as well as have them release into standard pass routes.  There will be crossing/rubbing action out of trips to allow for free releases and to hopefully force a DB to go around the rub action.

Hollywood will be on the other side and if there’s no safety over the top, we will take shots to him down the field.

This will almost always be no-huddle to further exhaust IC’s two DTs.

2 TE - Akins comes in for Aiyuk.  In this set, we will be more likely to keep one or both TEs to block and release Jones as we suspect Queen will have the RB in coverage in their base set.  We will target Jones heavily if Queen has him in coverage.

That said, we will use this in more short yardage and goalline situations to make use of our TEs size advantage in the pass game and as additional blockers in the run game.

Defense

Overview - Tannehill is hitting less than 56% of his passes completed over the past four weeks.  We want to shut down the run game, remove playaction, and make Tannehill beat us from the pocket.

DL - Trent and Kelly have been poopie all year, so we think our edge guys will be able to collapse the pocket and keep contain.  Brown has been a force, so we want to put him right in-between Kelce and Martin to keep as much of their attention as possible.  This is to try to force Lewis into one-on-one situations so we see how the rookie holds up.  We want to rotate in our four bench DL to keep our main guys fresh, but look for Hendrickson to play for Hand in pass rushing situations as he has 7.5 sacks and 8.5 TFL on the season.

Nickel - Rock and Kendall will play sides while Byron takes the slot WR.  Tremaine takes Cook.  Winfield will play up in the box to help against the run and has the RB in man coverage.

Rashaan is going to serve a number of roles in the pass game, but we want him to focus on the run game between the tackles which he excels at.  In the pass game, he will help bracket the slot WR, help bracket the TE, blitz, or spy Tannehill.  When Rashaan spies, he will basically sit in a middle zone coverage and mirror Tannehill in case he does get out of the pocket.  If spying, and Tannehill stays in the pocket, Rashaan will be staying in that middle zone or come on a delayed blitz.  Basically we want to use Rashaan to help remove throws between the hashes after playing the run.

Thornhill is going to line up deep.  He is going to shade left, shade right, or stay middle after the snap.  If Rashaan is going to be bracketing the slot WR or TE, Thornhill will typically shade to the left or right so we can spread out defenders on the back end.  But there will be a tendency towards shading to McLaurin, especially if he lines up on Rock’s side.

We will also use Cover-3 around 1/3rd of the time as it will look about the same presnap.  Byron would still follow the slot WR across the formation to not give away that we were playing zone, and just take the curl/flat to his new side.

4 WR - Joyner comes in for Rashaan and takes the slot to the other side of Byron.  Tremaine takes the RB everywhere.  Rock and

Winfield will continue to play up in the box and basically take over Rashaan’s role in 3 WR sets, except he might bracket the 2nd slot WR instead of the TE.

Thornhill will serve the same role as in 3 WR sets.

We will again incorporate Cover 3 on a semi-regular basis.

TRIPS - If they go with trips to a side, Rock takes the outside WR, Byron takes middle, and Winfield takes the inside WR as they release.  We think those three can blow up any WR screens or pick routes.

Tremaine has the RB everywhere.  Joyner will take the Winfield role in the middle to help against the run and typically sitting in a middle zone to help against any crossing routes.

Kendall would have man coverage on the far side.

Thornhill will sit deep shaded to the trips side.

BASE - Kyzir comes in at OLB for Rock and Byron plays outside.  Kyzir and Tremaine would have the TEs in coverage and Rashaan would take the RB.

Winfield will again play up to give us numbers in the box.  He will either help bracket one of the TEs, blitz, or sit in a middle zone to watch Tannehill and take away throws between the hashes.

Thornhill would play deep and shade to Byron’s side.

2 RB - With Chubb back, we wouldn’t be surprised to see some looks with both of them at the same time.  We will use our base personnel again.  Kendall, Byron, and Thornhill do the same thing.  Tremaine would have the TE in man.

Winfield would have the RB that releases to one side while Kyzir would have the RB that releases to the other side.  That way they don’t have to cross the formation.  Rashaan would be responsible for everything between the tackles.

[Jlash]

Also since you broke bois can't get an animated image to show the shell pre/post snap here it is.

[Scoundrel]

Ruskie was too epic in this one

[Scoundrel]

Leverage it baby

[Jlash]

18 minutes ago, Counselor said:

Leverage it baby

Hahah I pointed this out weeks ago on one of his gameplans. The man loves leverage. 7 times.

[Scoundrel]

35 minutes ago, Jlash said:

Hahah I pointed this out weeks ago on one of his gameplans. The man loves leverage. 7 times.

Yeah I remembered that’s why I mentioned it here he has stayed true to it lol

[RuskieTitan]

2 hours ago, Counselor said:

Leverage it baby

 

1 hour ago, Jlash said:

Hahah I pointed this out weeks ago on one of his gameplans. The man loves leverage. 7 times.

[VigilantZombie]

Man, this game has GOTW value. Two really good gameplans, two really good rosters.

Its honest to God a coin flip for me but that guy by the name of Mack, I think gets to Arod just enough for a last ditch effort to pull off the upset in a low scoring affair.

17-14 ICBR

[Pickle Rick]

Wirfs protecting the blindside dooms Berlin late in this one.  Not a good idea right now, Wirfs will get eaten alive by that pass rush. 

IC in the game of the week imo (top notch gameplans here)

[Scoundrel]

I’m probably going to be in be minority but I think Rodgers out-duels Tannehill when it matters. 

[Ragnarok]

13 minutes ago, Counselor said:

I’m probably going to be in be minority but I think Rodgers out-duels Tannehill when it matters. 

I certainly hope not.

[RuskieTitan]

1 minute ago, Ragnarok said:

15 minutes ago, Counselor said:

I’m probably going to be in be minority but I think Rodgers out-duels Tannehill when it matters. 

I certainly hope not.

[Jlash]

I went with IC, with Chubb back and not looking to have lost a beat, and McLaurin and Claypool playing how they have been this is sneakily one of the more dangerous offenses in the league. 

And Berlin obviously has a great offense as well, so the x-factor, as much as people get in these close games and just choose QB's, is the defensive side to me. I think IC's defense is incredibly well balanced, and I don't really like Rags' idea to basically purposely have Derrick Brown get double teamed by two of the better interior OL in the game, so that Da'Shawn Hand gets a 1on1 with Damien Lewis? I think IC moves the ball better, and has the ability to make more plays defensively as well.