BDL 2021 Week 1 - Ivory Coast Black Rhinos vs Hungary Hippos

[Whicker]

BDL 2021 Week 1

Match: Ivory Coast Black Rhinos @ Hungary Hippos

Away Owner: @RuskieTitan

Home Owner: @PR

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

Edited September 12, 2021 by Whicker

[Whicker]

Ivory Coast

QB- Ryan Tannehill
RB- Nick Chubb
WR- Terry McLaurin
WR- Robby Anderson
WR- Chase Claypool
TE- Noah Fant
LT- Trent Williams
LG- Damien Lewis
C- Jason Kelce
RG- Josh Jones
RT- Andrew Whitworth

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RB- Ezekiel Elliott
RB- D’Ernest Johnson
WR- A.J. Green
WR- Amon-Ra St. Brown
WR- Chester Rogers
TE- Albert Okwuegbunam
OL- Pat Elfein
OL- Jalen Mayfield

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DE- Khalil Mack
NT- Teair Tart
DT- Da'Ron Payne
DE- Myles Garrett
WLB- Devin White
MLB- Lavonte David
SCB- Patrick Peterson
CB- A.J. Terrell
CB- Greg Newsome II
S- Jimmie Ward
S- Devin McCourty

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DE- Chase Young
DT- Christian Barmore
DT- Milton Williams
DT/DE- Charles Omenihu
LB- Patrick Queen
CB- Caleb Farley
CB- Trevon Diggs
S- Troy Apke

 

 

 

 

 

QB - Dak Prescott

RB - Joe Mixon

WR - DK Metcalf

WR - Kenny Golladay

WR - Adam Thielen

TE - TJ Hockenson

LT - Charles Leno

LG - Ali Marpet

C - Matt Paradis

RG - Graham Glasgow

RT - Kaleb McGary

 

RB - James Robinson

RB - Raheem Mostert

WR - Darius Slayton

WR - Marquise Goodwin

TE - Jonnu Smith

TE- Ian Thomas

OL - John Simpson 

OL - Connor McGovern

 

DE - Emmanuel Ogbah

DT - Jonathan Allen

DT - DaVon Hamilton

DE - Mario Addison

LB - Shaq Thompson

LB - Josey Jewell

CB - Casey Hayward

FS - Harrison Smith

SS - Chuck Clark

NCB - AJ Parker

CB - Amani Oruwariye

 

DE - Everson Griffin

DE - Oshane Ximenes

DT - Nick Williams

DT - Tim Settle

LB - Dre Greenlaw

LB - Logan Wilson

CB - Desmond Trufant

CB/S - Logan Ryan 

[Whicker]

Ivory Coast

Motivation- Beat Hungary

Offense
Primary Formation: 11 Personnel Single Back-

We bring back the bulk of our offense from last season, and will primarily operate out of 11 personnel for this game. We will rely on our receiver depth and rotate the players to keep them fresh. Goal line situations, we’ll bring in Jalen Mayfield as a 6^th offensive lineman to help block. Second year player Josh Jones makes his debut at right guard, but Kelce will make the proper calls and playing between veterans Kelce and Whitworth will limit the drop-off from losing Martin for this game.

Running Game Focus-

Nick Chubb is going to get the bulk of the carries this game, aiming for approximately a 75-25 split in touches between Chubb and Elliot. We’re spreading the field out a bit with our 11 personnel, and are going to rely on our offensive line to pave the way up front. Trent, Damien, and Jason return from last season and keep that consistency going. Andrew Whitworth was a new acquisition, and while playing on the right side isn’t his current NFL task, he’s still going to be miles better than our RT situation last year, and provides a veteran lockdown presence on the edge. Josh Jones starts at right guard with Martin out, but we expect him to live up to his draft status last year and also bring in some additional linemen if necessary. Jalen Mayfield will come on to provide another big body when we are in goal line and short yardage situations. Chubb will be relying on his vision and abilities to read the blockers, we’ll be balanced in terms of running inside and outside the tackles.

Passing Game Focus-

We’re coming into the game with six receivers, and we expect that all will see the field at some point, with an obvious emphasis on our starters McLaurin, Anderson, and Claypool. McLaurin will primarily work out of the slot, but he’ll also be our main motion man, coming across the line of scrimmage and seeing if they have man assignments. If we do, Tannehill will recognize the coverage and between those three and Fant, he will be able to find the open man with the time that the offensive line provides. We feel confident our tackles will lock down the edges, and Kelce can slide to assist Jones if needed. Zeke Elliot will be brought in more on third and longs, primarily to serve as an elite pass protector for Tannehill, but also serve as a dump-off option if no blitz comes. Elliot will also have a few designed pass plays for him to catch the defense off-guard. Noah Fant will be aggressive and attacking down the middle of the field this game – if Tannehill sees the safeties providing help to the outside receiver threats, he’s going to keep feeding Fant. Likewise, if Hungary commits to taking away the middle of the field, we’re going to hit Fant on corner routes, taking advantage of his athleticism to pull away. We’re going to primarily operate Tannehill from under center, about 70-30 with shotgun. Play action will be included, but not overly abused, so that we can maximize the impacts on deep shots that the running game sets up.

X-Factor on Offense: Offensive Line-

Even with Zack Martin sitting out this game, we enter this matchup very confident in our offensive line being able to win in the trenches this game. Our tackles will be able to lock down their edges in pass protection, giving Tannehill a clean pocket, and seal the edges on outside runs. Our interior will be able to open up holes for the running game, and with veteran Kelce manning the middle, he’ll make sure Jones is up to speed on his assignments. The offensive line will allow for our running game to keep the chains moving and giving Tannehill time for our receiving targets to work their secondary, allowing for the offense to keep moving like a well-oiled machine.

 

Defense
Defensive Formation: 4-2-5 Defense-

Nickel defense is the ‘base’ defense in the BDL, and we expected Hungary to come out with 3 wide for this. Patrick Peterson will be the primary slot corner, but we’ll spend time having him shadow DK throughout the game to mix up coverages. Our default seven man front will be a 4-3, with Tart playing more of a NT role and Payne the 3 tech. Lavonte David would shift to SLB, and Patrick Queen would come in at middle linebacker. PP and Terrell will be the two corners, though if one struggles we’ll go to our depth. For dime coverage we’ll have White come out and bring in Caleb Farley as the dime back. Chase Young, though coming off the bench, is going to be rotating and splitting reps evenly with Myles Garrett and Khalil Mack, keeping the trio fresh. We’re also going to rotate our interior line constantly, keeping the big boys energized to collapse the pocket.

Against the Pass: Cover-2 man under-

We are going to play our safeties in cover 2 for most of the game, making sure we don’t give up any big plays while we rely on our offense to take the lead and keep the lead. Our corners will be matched up in man coverage, and we anticipate having success with sticking to their man. Patrick Peterson will be the slot corner primarily, but about 40% of the time he’ll be shadowing DK, even if it takes him outside pre-snap. The other 60% will depend on where he’s lined up, with the safeties favoring that side of the field as well. The corners will play up closer to the line, we don’t want to allow Hungary to get any quick passes out from Dak without disruption, but we aren’t necessarily going to jam (on occasion though), we just want to maintain tight coverage and force Dak to make perfect throws in the face of pressure. Mack, Garrett, and Young are going to pin their ears back and focus on getting Dak to the ground, we think they will win their matchups against their tackles. Our interior will rotate 5 bodies, and on occasion one of Garrett/Young/Mack will also slide inside on third and longs for pass rushing. Lavonte David will take their primary tight end in coverage, with Devin White taking the other option / running back. We’re going to feature a few cover 2 zones where we bring Devin White on an A-Gap blitz to get sacks, as well as have White fake the blitz.

Against the Run-

Payne and Tart are going to help set the interior of the line and make life difficult to churn out yards up the middle. They’ll help free up David and White to fly around to the ball carrier. Mack, Young, and Garrett will play the run on the way to the quarterback, and we have little concerns about our defensive front winning their matchups. We’re bringing in quite a few defensive linemen, and we’re going to keep those middle boys fresh and help wear down the offensive line of Hungary. McCourty and Ward will be playing higher against the pass, but have the ability to come down and make plays against the run.

X-Factor on Defense: Hydra-

The Hydra returns in 2021. We will find ways to get all three of Chase Young, Khalil Mack, and Myles Garrett on the field at the same time, and those instances will usually be on 3^rd and long (7+) for obvious passing downs. We expect this trio to provide pressure and limit Hungary from being able to take advantage of deep shots. We’re also going to have safeties high for most of the game to prevent deep shots and allow the trio to get to the quarterback. We’re having the corners play close coverage to prevent Dak from having quick passing options and getting rid of the football quickly.

 

 

 

 

Offense:(60-40 Pass-Run)
Pre-Snap we will have one of our three receivers go in motion to help Dak read Man-Zone coverage. 

3WR - 50%

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.  Mixon/Robinson/Mostert run into the flats and short underneath after chipping an edge as we can dink and dunk a zone defense or zone blitz heavy defense.  Thielen 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. We will look to get the ball to the person covered by Peterson early and often.
This formation also lightens the box against the run.   We are gonna slow them down with the screen game and draws.  Our RB will generally chip and edge and we slide the line the opposite direction of the chip.  
If for some reason they decide to go man, Dak will attack the corners greatly via bunch sets. 
From time to time we will flex out Hockenson into the open as well to lighten the box further.

 

4WR - 25%

Slayton and Thielen will be inside with Golladay and Metcalf being on the outside. In man situations we will audible to the spread offense and look to catch one of Ivory Coast’s DBs on an island. Most of the plays in this formation will be out of the shotgun.
We want to attack the secondary with every type of route but we will have a couple WRs running underneath routes at all times.  We will use Mostert in this situation for draws, screens, and quick flare routes to slow down the outside pass rush.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.

If there isn’t safety coverage over DK, we will take shots to him down field.

2TE - 15%

In our 2 TE set, we like the flexibility to either use a TE to pass protect on the edge, release him to the flat, or draw a box player out wide in coverage.  Hockenson will be lined out wide looking for a mismatch.  If we can draw a box defender outside, we can also take advantage in the running game.  Mixon and Robinson will split snaps in this formation, we look to beat up the ICBR’S dline with both.

 

2RB - 10%

Mostert will come in as the second RB in this set as he is a threat to run or catch. The 2RB option opens up the triple option and swing passes to the outside for the running game.

Dak is also a threat to run at any point. He has free reign to tuck the ball under and run at any point in any formation to gain yardage on the ground. 

 

Defense:

4-2-5

Run: Jonathan Allen and DaVon Hamilton clog the middle and get penetration.   We want to give Tannehill little time to step up and make throws.

As ICBR has an impressive stable of backs, our LBs in Thompson and Josey will step up to fill gaps in the formation.  Shaw will be a spy on the RB in both the run game and pass to limit their impact. 
Pass Rush: Emmanuel Ogbah and Mario Addison crash the edges. We will be bringing pressure from our front for most of the game.. This should force Tannehill to throw into max coverage and not give his receivers time to develop their routes. We will rotate in Griffin and Ximenes to keep the pass rush going. Settle and Williams will also rotate in for pass rush duties.
For blitzing, we will blitz one of the LBers periodically up the A or B gap for some additional pressure. 

Pass Defense:
We will go cover 1 man with Harrison Smith as the deep safety. Hayward and Oru will use the outside shade. Parker will run underneath to cover the slot while Clark plays the robber role in the defense. Clark will cover the TE in certain formations. 
In four receiver sets Trufant will come on. 

Assignments:
Hayward - McLaurin
Oru - Anderson
Parker - slot
Trufant - 4th WR
Clark - TE
RB - Shaq

[EaglesPeteC]

That IC defensive line is a massive advantage over Hungary O-line. Combine that with I think the Hungary D is the weakest unit in this matchup 

[VigilantZombie]

When it comes to offensive skill positions, I think I've got to give the nod to Hungary. However, I think the defense is the difference in this game and IC triumphs on defense. I think it would be a very close game, but 21-17 ICBR

[Pickle Rick]

Defense is the name of the game here and IC is much more in a position to build a string of stops 

[Scoundrel]

I’d like to change my vote? I guess it won’t matter on the outcome here. I like the Hungary weapons a lot and I think their oline is underrated (not great) but okay. And while the IC defense is pretty elite in the front 7 I thought Hungary would get some wins in their passing game which I think they still do but I think their defense doesn’t hold up against the IC offense despite a mediocre performance by Tannehill. I think IC is just the better team when I really reread this whole thing. Amani is going to lose reps to those receivers and while Hayward is very good he doesn’t have the benefit of a high pressure front on this team. Don’t think there will be enough pass rush pressure from Hungary. 3 of their 4 ends are really rotational players all play under 50% of their defenses snaps and Ogbah the only one who plays a majority share at 64%. So if I can change I’d go IC.

[bcb1213]

I think Hungary will get some nice chunk plays on slants and rub routes underneath against a shell d that isn't going to allow the deep ball but it's the smart strategy here by IC as it allows the rush to to get home more often than not against an average Hungary line.  On the flip side I think Whitworth is going to to struggle early in the year having never played RT in his eleventy year career.  Despite that I don't see Hungary having the edge rush to takes advantage. Ic will need Martin back as Jones is still looking miserably but it's enough this week 

 

IC 24-16

[pheltzbahr]

I like the Hippos in this one.  Dak showed me something this week that I hadn't seen before.

[Jlash]

I'm gonna go under dogs here. With IC going heavy cover two that leaves the seams open for a good TE like Hock a d I think Dak ultimately makes one more big play than Tannehill.

[Ragnarok]

Going IC here.  I think they can protect and pressure better than Hungary.  Really close though.

[SirA1]

I think the Hippos are hungry enough to get the win at home.

It's close though

17-16 Hungary

[MD4L]

Hungary has a nice offensive arsenal that will challenge teams this season. This is a close game throughout but I like ICBR to extend a lead in the 2nd half with their pass rush in particular doing enough to slow some drives down. Also like the ICBR receivers against the Hungary CBs.

[rackcs]

Hungary's offense makes plenty of plays but I think their defense gives us just as many. In the end this one is going to come down to the fact that IC's line will wreak havoc enough to get a few more stops than the Hungary defense will.