BDL 2020 Week 12 - Ivory Coast Black Rhinos @ Rome Eternals

[Ragnarok]

BDL 2020 Week 12

Match: Ivory Coast Black Rhinos @ Rome Eternals

Away Owner: @RuskieTitan

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.

[Ragnarok]

Ivory Coast

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- Ricky Wagner
RT- Dennis Kelly

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RB- Ezekiel Elliott
RB- Chase Edmonds
RB- Wayne Gallman
WR- Corey Davis
WR- Adam Humphries
TE- Kyle Rudolph
OL- Billy Price
OL- Josh Jones

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 DE- Khalil Mack
DT- Da'Ron Payne
DT- Larry Ogunjobi
DE- Myles Garrett
LB- Lavonte David
LB- Devin White
CB- Patrick Peterson
CB- Jaylon Johnson
CB- A.J. Terrell
S- Jordan Whitehead
S- Devin McCourty

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DE- Chase Young
DE- Charles Omenihu
DT- Geno Atkins
DT- Maurice Hurst
LB- Patrick Queen
LB- Sione Takitaki
CB- Darnay Holmes
S- Ashtyn Davis

 

ROME

QB Justin Herbert 

RB Phillip Lindsey 

WR Juju Smith Schuster 

WR Amari Cooper 

WR Hunter Renfrow 

WR Jamison Crowder 

LT Ryan Ramcyk 

LG Chris Lindstrom

C Brandon Linder 

RG Michael Onwenu 

RT Braden Smith 

 

WR Devin Devurnay 

RB Boston Scott 

TE Anthony Firkser 

TE Tyler Eifert 

OL Mike Iupati 

RB Malcolm Brown 

OL Ted Karras 

OL Joe Notebloom 

 

 

DT Michael Brockers 

NT Malcolm Brown 

DT Dalvin Tomlinson 

LB Leighton Vander Esch 

LB Matt Milano Q

LB Leonard Floyd 

CB Marlon Humphrey 

CB Jamel Dean 

CB William Jackson 

S Duron Harmon 

S  Ricardo Allen

 

Edge Carlos Dunlap q

Edge Dante Fowler 

Edge Jaylon Ferguson 

INT Malik Jackson 

LB Neville Hewitt 

LB Jordan Hicks 

CB Nickell Robley Coleman 

CB Buster Skrine

[Ragnarok]

Ivory Coast

Offense
Primary Formation: 11 Personnel Single Back- We’re coming out with a single back set, Tannehill splitting time under center, in shotgun, and in pistol. We’ll have three receivers as our primary set. On short yardage and goal line situations, we’ll bring in Kyle Rudolph on the field and bring Robby Anderson off. We’ll want to be equal in passing and rushing for the offense this week.

Running Game Focus- With Zack Martin out, we’re going to adapt our running game, and rely on quick double teams provided by the guards to open up running lanes inside. Ricky Wagner will be brought in as the emergency starter, and we plan on leveraging the left side of the line behind Williams and Lewis more than the right, but we will also build upon that to run some counters to the right to catch the defense off-guard. We trust our tackles to be able to seal the edges and allow Chubb and Elliott to get to the edge and up the field. We’re looking to try and control the clock this game, so Chubb will be looking to get 25+ carries, with Elliot spilling him for breathers. In short yardage situations we’ll have Anderson come off and bring in a bigger body in Kyle Rudolph, who will see a few snaps out of the backfield as a lead blocker as well as an in-line blocker, and spring him later for some play-action passes. We want to limit the amount of time that Rome’s offense stays on the field, so we’re going to grind it out quite a bit with our running backs.

Passing Game Focus- We’re going to spread out Rome’s defense with 3 receivers, primarily Terry McLaurin, Robby Anderson, and Chase Claypool. When we see a single safety high, we’ll have Tannehill looking to take a deep shot with one of our receivers. We’re going to leverage our receiving weapons and keep Rome on their toes, using play action passes built from the running game, and having designed bootleg passes with Tannehill having the option to tuck if he wants. We’re going to have our running backs operate as additional blockers the vast majority of the time, to prevent Rome from taking advantage of Martin’s absence or sending blitzes. If the backs see that everyone is blocking up, they’ll leak out of the backfield to serve as a check-down option. That being said, we’ll also run some screens to the backs to take advantage of aggression and catching the defense off-guard. Jared Cook will be lining up both in-line and split out wide, and depending on the matchup we’ll leverage his mismatch. We’ll rely heavily on pre-snap motion, partly to get a man moving at the snap for the play, partly to force the defense to shift before the snap, and partly to help identify the coverage pre-snap. Corey Davis and Adam Humphries will be giving relief to the three starters, with Humphries primarily operating out of the slot and working the first down chains as a safety valve for Tannehill. Whoever Marlon Humphrey ends up covering, we will try and focus on taking advantage of the other receivers. If we see that he’s sticking to a particular player, we’re going to have that receiver run several fly routes to wear him down early and keep that receiver rotation fresh.

X-Factor on Offense: Control the Clock- We want to limit the opportunities that Herbert and Rome’s offense comes out on the field, so we’re looking to establish long, sustained drives that result in points and chew up the clock. Chubb will be featured heavily, and we’re going to adapt without Martin in the lineup.

 

Defense
Defensive Formation: 4-2-5 Defense- Our default defense for this matchup will feature two linebackers and three cornerbacks. When Rome has two receivers or less, we’ll bring in Patrick Queen at middle linebacker, with David and White as outside linebackers. When Rome comes out with four or more receivers, we’ll have Darnay Holmes come in as a fourth cornerback.

Secondary Coverage: Cover-1 and Cover-2 Man-Under Scheme- We’re going to run a lot of man coverage with safety help over the top this game. We want to keep at least one safety high, if not both, to avoid giving up any big plays and making Rome have to earn everything underneath. We’ll have some full zones to mix up the coverages, and we aren’t planning on having specific man assignments unless we see that Rome is focusing on a specific receiver or a receiver is starting to eat, then we’ll likely put Peterson to shadow them. When we run a cover-1 we’ll likely have Devin White coming in on a blitz. Lavonte David will take the primary TE, with Devin White on the primary HB (unless Cover-1 blitz, in which case Jordan Whitehead will take that coverage responsibility).

Defensive Box- We’ll run a lot of twists and stunts to generate pressure in the middle with our defensive line. Charles Omenihu will be part of the interior rotation for this game as well. Garrett and Mack will start on the edges, with Young spilling them. When we put Rome into 3^rd and 7+, we’ll have Mack / Garrett rotate inside and bring Young out as well, for our Hydra pass rush. We’ll have Devin White use his speed and blitzing ability up the middle on some of our cover-1 looks, and we’ll have our linebackers use their speed to run down any running plays. Our edges will continue to do what they do and hold the edges against the run while also collapsing the pocket on passing plays.

X-Factor on Defense: Myles Garrett- We welcome back Myles Garrett into the starting lineup, providing us with two elite edge players alongside Mack, and allowing us to run the Hydra once again against Rome’s passing attack.

 

ROME

Motivation

Win or go home.  Win , we make the playoffs. We lose, we are basically eliminated..

 Offense 

Herbert retakes the Reigns this week. Our depth is getting tested this week but we are coming out firing.  We've concentrated in practice for three weeks now on beating zone defenses so he's ready to go 

 4 wr 1 RB (35%)

This is where the majority of pur passing game will come from.  Renfrow and Crowder  come from the slots with Juju and Amari outside.  We will use motion to determine man or zone and allow Herbert to audible as he sees fit.     If we see man coverage, we’ll motion back to spread and take whoever Peterson is on and run him deep at the safety on that side.  

With Bradley Roby and Adoree Jackson out, Ic is down to Peterson and three rookies.  Terrell has looked solid but Johnson has been awful since an early hot start and darnay holmes is just bad. Thus we expect to see a boatload of zone defenses..  We will run floods and seam routes to find the holes in the zone. We'll hit a bunch of wr screens to our playmaker in the trips with the extra Blocker on that side.  Lindsey/Scott runs into the flats and short underneath after chipping an edge as we can dink and dunk a zone defense or zone blitz heavy defense to death.  Crowder also will be used on drags and quick outs against zone blitz    if we see a bunch of zone we'll hit some RB screens on Ramcyk side as well

This formation also lightens the box against the run.  We expect to see the three DE package this week that will be aiming to tee off on Herbert.  We are gonna slow them down with the screen game and draws.  Let the edges rush up field and let our three interior studs take out an undersized DT and get our RB to the second level. Up front we've inserted Onwenu at guard to neutralize an extra edge on three interior.   Our RB will generally chip and edge and we slide the line the opposite direction of the chip.  The second advantage of Onwenu on the inside is we are gonna use a good amount of rollout to the right and get Herbert out of the pocket. 

If for some reason they decide to go man we are attacking Johnson and holmes ad nauseum and their assignments will get ten to twelve targets each. 

2 wr, 2 te, 1 RB. (20%)

We still have our base offense near the end of quarters.  There's nothing too fancy here single back two TE with Firkser going in motion to either block from an overloaded side against zone or he'll keep going into the the flat for a quick couple yards on a pass.  Expect some two WR on one side and two TE on the other. This will give us a quick zone man read and allow us options in an rpo based running game.  We'll continue to crush up the middle of the field here or hit a bubble screen to get juju or Amari one on one outside.  Other passing off the PA 

2 RB, 3 WR    10% 

 The triple read option is going to play a heavy part from this formation.  Mainly from the pistol formation, the first read is the edge crashing down to stop the inside run, if he does then we run the speed option to the side of the field with two WR to serve as lead blockers to the speed option.  The linebacker on this side will have to determine to go after Herbert or the RB.  If we see the defense creeping up, we are gonna hit a play action deep to an outside WR. Scott and Brown serve as the RB here to give Lindsay a breather. Brown is the inside read with Scott on the outside option 

5 wide (20%)

Devurnay comes in as the fifth WR  We'll concentrate on hitting our outside WR using rub routes posts and outs against man and the same zone beaters we expect against zone.  Devurnay gets some looks against ehh a safety I guess if it's man . We'll give him a jet sweep as well running towards the three wr side as any zone d will give up a nice chunk of yardage today on this play 

Other 10 percent will be a mix of things working above and jumbo goal line sets as needed. 

Tl/dr: 

Use our wide receiver talent.  Motion to determine coverage with easy hot route reads against the blitz.  Run at the interior , incorporate screens as an extension of the run game and roll Herbert out of pocket to allow wr too work open against zone 

 

Defense 

This week we welcome in the run heavy Ic offense and Mr play action Ryan tannehill. 

We are incorporating a 3-3-5 look this week.   We feel like this gives us a heavy run stopping unit against the nickel with three DT out there.  Our edge DT will set the edge and force everything inside.  With Zach Martin out, Ic will be stuck starting a real life backup at guard with Billy Price most likely drawing the start. Price is getting benched on the Bengals offensive line. That's all the explanation I should need to give there.  Setting the edges allows us to let our linebacking Corp make plays and allows us to shoot gaps with a mixture of players (floyd, lve, Harmon in the box) .   Milano or Hicks will not be one of those players and will be responsible for watching for the counter play IC loves. Being able to to blitz anywhere from the one to to three of the above mentioned guys (with Allen getting cook) will keep you tannehill and the offense guessing 

On passing downs we'll bring in an edge, Dunlap if he plays (4 sacks in 4 games in Seattle)  with l floyd moving to straight pass rusher.  Jackson comes in for a second big boy and Tomlinson switches inside. In passing downs we like up Tomlinson in between Lewis and kelce and let Jackson destroy price one on one 

Humphrey draws Claypool and should shut him down.  Jackson goes speed for speed with Anderson while Dean gets McLaurin. Our corners have zero run stopping responsibility this week and only job is to shut down their wr assignment.  This should help you defend your against the play action.  In four wide we switch to coverage two with a safety helping Skrine with Davis first.   As mentioned earlier Milano/Hicks has the RB duty and one of the nine blitzes will get the ghost of Jared Cooks.  Allen will be playing over the top shaded towards the Anderson side.  If we only bring four, one of LVE or Harmon will have middle zone robber 

In two TE sets we'll take Jackson off and put in Ferguson and run a 3-4 base defense.   Fowler substitute for the Floyd when he needs a breather, more than often in 3-4 look 

As mentioned earlier we are gonna play majority man but we will mix in a few zone blitzes and occasional base cover two and cover 6.

Tl/dr. 

Trust the corner talent.  Funnel plays inside setting edge with big boys.  Limit play action. 

[bcb1213]

Ehh has Wagner played guard in his life? 

[Scoundrel]

1 minute ago, bcb1213 said:

Ehh has Wagner played guard in his life? 

You’ve never played an offensive Lineman out of position in a position they’ve never played on the line?

[bcb1213]

16 minutes ago, Counselor said:

You’ve never played an offensive Lineman out of position in a position they’ve never played on the line?

Like in their entire life when there's someone on the roster who has.  No 

Edited December 7, 2020 by bcb1213

[Scoundrel]

48 minutes ago, bcb1213 said:

Like in their entire life when there's someone on the roster who has.  No 

I think the loss of Martin hurts him here but not the Wagner position change. No matter who he had there it’s a big downgrade.

[RuskieTitan]

59 minutes ago, Counselor said:

I think the loss of Martin hurts him here but not the Wagner position change. No matter who he had there it’s a big downgrade.

I think Wagner sliding inside would result in a better performance than what Price would do, as Rome so kindly pointed out in their writeup.

[Scoundrel]

28 minutes ago, RuskieTitan said:

I think Wagner sliding inside would result in a better performance than what Price would do, as Rome so kindly pointed out in their writeup.

I agree with this. I think it was the right choice for what your options were. 

[bcb1213]

 

5 hours ago, Counselor said:

I agree with this. I think it was the right choice for what your options were. 

I mean either way he's starting a real life backup but man the technique and positioning at guard is different than at tackle.   I admit price isn't good but he at least knows what he's doing.  Especially seeing how the plan is to run inside more than outside putting the emphasis on the guard positioning even more 

[RuskieTitan]

1 hour ago, bcb1213 said:

 

I mean either way he's starting a real life backup but man the technique and positioning at guard is different than at tackle.   I admit price isn't good but he at least knows what he's doing.  Especially seeing how the plan is to run inside more than outside putting the emphasis on the guard positioning even more 

How do you figure that? I don't see my gameplan saying that was the plan. What I do see is a mention on how we adjust around not having Martin go out and win 1-on-1 battles by using double teams if / when we run through the middle, with a clear statement we're going to run left more than right (to set up counters to the right), as well as our tackles sealing the edges for outside runs.

[bcb1213]

2 hours ago, RuskieTitan said:

How do you figure that? I don't see my gameplan saying that was the plan. What I do see is a mention on how we adjust around not having Martin go out and win 1-on-1 battles by using double teams if / when we run through the middle, with a clear statement we're going to run left more than right (to set up counters to the right), as well as our tackles sealing the edges for outside runs.

" rely on quick double teams provided by the guards to open up running lanes inside" 

I mean rely on pretty simply means rely on. 

And counter plays are also inside runs unless your gonna have your whole o line go left/right and have him run directly where there's zero o lineman on the edge which I guess you could do.

So that's multiple mentions of inside running with the outside running summed up with tackles set the edge and RB goes outside. Two to one mention in my brain equals more inside running but that's me 

[RuskieTitan]

41 minutes ago, bcb1213 said:

" rely on quick double teams provided by the guards to open up running lanes inside" 

I mean rely on pretty simply means rely on. 

And counter plays are also inside runs unless your gonna have your whole o line go left/right and have him run directly where there's zero o lineman on the edge which I guess you could do.

So that's multiple mentions of inside running with the outside running summed up with tackles set the edge and RB goes outside. Two to one mention in my brain equals more inside running but that's me 

Yes, when we run inside, we will rely on the double team blocks. The first part of my sentence specifically called out that we're adapting our running game with Martin being out, and then went into detail on how we're adapting with him out. If your interpretation is that this somehow means that it is our primary avenue of attack, well, that's your opinion, I think most folks will understand that I was addressing an area of potential concern given that a starter was out. Counter plays I am aware can involve the back going inside or taking it outside the tackle's shoulder; the whole point of counter plays is to catch the defense leaning one way (set up by the fact that we're running behind the left side as already stated) and exploit aggressiveness / overpursuit, where it's not relying on superior matchups to win battles.

If a guard or center is missing, isn't it more likely to go into detail about how those spots would be filled and handled by a backup, rather than go into detail about how the tackles (that have started all season) are going to block? I address that Wagner would be getting assistance with double team blocks, I address that we're not going to focus on running behind him, but will take advantage of any defensive lapses that may occur, and I address that we're confident with our tackles to seal the edges. The only time I could see discussing guards with respect to outside runs would be pulls, and again, we're not trying to throw a whole bunch of complex pulls for Wagner to be executing this game. At any rate, I'm not a big fan of expanding detail after gameplans are submitted, but since you pressed, I clarified using only what I had provided in the gameplan.

[bcb1213]

Okie dokie. Well I did plan for the counters anyhow and setting the edges with my fat guys and forcing you inside so if your plan is going outside I have that covered 

Edited December 7, 2020 by bcb1213

[bcb1213]

Second question how are your ends holding the edges if you're running a bunch of stunts and twists? Ps thanks for moving them into the interior of my line often.  Will help with the roll outs and moving the pocket