BDL 2021 Week 5 - Rome Eternals @ Cancun Kaiju

[SirA1]

BDL 2021 Week 5

Match:  Rome Eternals @ Cancun Kaiju

Away Owner:  @bcb1213

Home Owner:  @Blue

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

[SirA1]

Rome Eternals

QB Justin Herbert

RB Najee Harris

H-Back CJ Uzomah

WR Amari Cooper

WR Jaylen Waddle

TE OJ Howard

LT Tyron Smith

LG Ted Karras 

C Brandon Linder

RG Chris Lindstom

RT Ryan Ramcyk

 

RB DeAndre Swift

RB Phillip Lindsey

WR Juju Smith Shuster

WR Hunter Renfrow

WR Devin Devurnay

TE Dan Arnold

OT Donovan Smith

C/G Justin Britt

 

DE Carlos Dunlap

UT Dalvin Tomlinson

DE Justin Houston

LB Matt Milano

LB Leighton Vander Esch

CB Marlon Humphrey

CB William Jackson 

NB Jamel Dean 

S Grant Delpit

S Eddie Jackson

S Duron Harmon

 

Edge Dante Fowler JR

Edge Jaelan Phillips

INT Malik Mcdowell

INT Malcolm Brown 

LB Devondre Campbell

LB Nick Bolton 

CB Michael Carter II

CB Josh Norman 

 

Cancun Kaiju

QB Patrick Mahomes

FB Kyle Juszczyk

WR Courtland Sutton

WR Cordarelle Patterson

Slot WR Elijah Moore

TE Austin Hooper

LT Justin Herron

LG Hala Vaitai

C Rodney Hudson

RG Alex Leatherwood

RT Brian O'Neill

 

OW Taysom Hill

RB1 Latavius Murray

RB2 Alexander Mattison

RB3 Rhamondre Stevenson

WR4 Jakobi Meyers

WR5 Sterling Shepard  INACTIVE

TE2 Dalton Schultz

OL Sam Cosmi

 

DE Robert Quinn

DT Larry Ogunjobi

DT Malik Jackson

DE Greg Rousseau

LB Pete Werner

LB Elandon Roberts

CB Tre’Davious White

CB Byron Jones

CB Michael Davis

FS Kevin Byard

SS Jordan Fuller

 

DE3 Preston Smith

DE4 Derek Barnett

DT3 Rashard Lawrence

LB3 Genard Avery

LB4 David Long

CB4 Darius Phillips

S3 Quandre Diggs

S4 Jalen Thompson

 

Edited October 10, 2021 by SirA1

[SirA1]

Rome Eternals

Offense

Strategy 

This week we are going smash mouth football, controlling the clock and running at a week front seven group against rushing attacks. Run-Pass 65-35

Running game. 

We look to do most of our running to the edges of this defenses.  1, it is where the strength of our offensive lies in Smith and Ramcyk, and two thats where Cancun is at its weakest.  If Greg Rousseau grabs another start we are going to run at him relentlessly as he has been a huge liability against the run this year.  Once we get to the edge, we trust our RB duo against a LB corps that has one of maybe two actual NFL starters, let alone BDL starters.  We run Uzomah as the FB/HB role that he ran in college so well  Howard comes in for more blocking as well. 

We will concentrate on stretch plays as well as some tosses with this lines athleticism.  Once we see them starting to overcommit we are going to hir some counter runs on the back door.  We have no problem running on either side of the line.   Harris sees majority of the early down work with Swift coming on for third down work and giving him a breather.  Lindsey also will see a handful of snaps in the game.   Arnold will rotate in on occasions in three TE sets.  If we see a lot of man coverage in the game, we’ll put both WR on one side of the field with a toss to the open side. 

Just because we start with edges doesn't mean we won't run inside.  Losing akiem Hicks is a huge blow to the Cancun interior run defense and we'll look towards his replacement as well. 

Passing game 

Most of the early down passing is going to come off play action.  With the defense looking into the backfield, we feel we can hit Waddle for one or two deep balls, even if the corners are good, he is hard to keep up with.  Cooper maintains as the underneath guy with crossing routes, slants, and drags off play action to get him the ball.  We will occasionally roll out to give herbert a run or pass option.  Also we will occasionally put Uzomah in motion as we can still either run or throw depending on what Herbert sees.  We’ll make sure to give Howard a go route opportunity as we don’t think Cancun will bother much with him

In longer downs and distances we are going to go four wide and test the Cancun depth.  Cooper, Juju, and Renfrow rotating inside with Waddle stretching the field outside.  We think our line can hold up here and expect Cancun to be stuck in zone or have some matchup issues.  We’ll motion to check for man or zone and if zone, we’ll run seams and floods with an occasional WR screen to Juju.  If they stick in man we are attackign Phillips and whoever CB5/S is on Devurnay. In five wide or whoever is assigned the RB going in motion from a four wide look.  We’ll run a lot of combo routes out of all formations to get our WR open

RPO 

With the linebackers needing to worry about the stretch runs it can lead them to abandoning their zones.  If Herbert sees this we have slants ready to go on the back end of the play or even a quick throw to the WR if the corners are playing way off to get our playmakers a chance to make a big play.

TL/DR- control the line of scrimmage. Hit the edges in the run game, safety in the box doesn’t matter with bad LB. Spread em out when need to pass with 4-5 wide

Defense

This week we line up in a 3-3-5 variant but we are planning on showing multiple looks throughout the game.  We will be going majority man defense but will sprinkle in some zone looks in both cover three and cover two looks just because you can't keep running the same defense against Mahomes.  

We run a three safety look today with Cancun likely to use Patterson as a jack of all trades type of role today.   On the outside, Humphrey shuts down Sutton, Jackson gets whoever the outside wr is with Dean taking the inside man.  If Sutton for some reason is in the slot, Dean will take Moore and W. Jackson takes whoever else there is .  Humphrey shut down Sutton last week and we feel comfortable leaving him on an island.   Patterson is gonna get doubled by Delpit and a safety.  We'll rotate E. Jackson and Harmon on the deep responsibility on Patterson.   Other safety is deep cover one 

With shepherd out Patterson may be at wr more often than not. If so we'll just put Jackson on him and run a general dime or big dime 

One of our lb will be blitzing on every play.  Our edges have contain assignments and we feel mixing and matching pressures up the middle against perhaps bdl worst guard tandem is a recipe for success.  Whichever lb isn't blitzing has delayed blitz or Juzyk duty if he actually runs a route instead of blocking. If it's four wide with Patterson in the backfield, Carter gets whoever that is and we take lve off the field. Milano will still blitz 

We'll run more zone with traditional four man fronts with Phillips and Houston at edge with Tomlinson and McDowell inside providing the push while the edges maintain contain on Mahomes .  

Up front we have depth, brown will get some early down work for Tomlinson to give him a break and brockers will also get some early down work giving Houston a break.  

TL/DR: Eliminate Patterson.  Force everything inside.  Trust the talent 

 

Cancun Kaiju

Offense

The Rome defense doesn’t have much in the way of pass rush, so we’re going to give the left tackle some help from the left guard or a tight end/running back in pass protection and air it out a bunch this week for a 70-30 pass-rush ratio. We respect Marlon Humphrey, so we’ll be avoiding him in coverage and targeting the No. 2 and 3 cornerbacks relentlessly instead. William Jackson has really struggled covering receivers deep this season, so when we see who he’s covering we’ll send that receiver on deep or crossing routes to get him in position to burn Jackson. Janoris Jenkins looks old and burned out, while Jamel Dean doesn’t really scare us in coverage either. We’ll get Sterling Shepard and Jakobi Meyers snaps in the slot while Meyers and Elijah Moore gives Patterson and Sutton breathers on the outside.

Murray is going to be our lead back today and we’re going to focus on running him between the center and guard to take advantage of our bigger bodies and power. We’re going to use play-action to try to freeze the linebackers and create a little more cushion for our receivers and tight ends in the intermediate areas of the field. We have moved O’Neill back to right tackle so that we don’t have to give both our tackles help on the edge. Mattison and Hill will get some carries from the backfield in relief of Murray to get more speed back there, but Juszczyk will largely be a blocker this week rather than a receiver/rusher. We want to emphasize the receivers and tight ends in the passing game rather than the backs.

 

Defense

Going up against Rome this week, we expect them to rely heavily upon the back of Justin Herbert and their various weapons, including Cooper on the outside, Renfrow from a variety of spots (flex), and mixing Waddle and JuJu sporadically in the slot(s) and as a 4th WR deep threat with Waddle as that guy (unless he wants to try to use JuJu, in which case, great for us).

We don't believe that they will be able to establish much of a running game from Najee and Swift, but will instead use them just enough to keep us honest, and intend to use them more out of the backfield.

As a result, we will be utilizing mostly Nickel and Big Nickel personnel, unless they try to deploy a double TE set and 22 personnel. We expect them to heavily rely on an out of the backfield game, while also utilizing Renfrow, JuJu, and Waddle in the slot positions, as well as Najee, Swift, and potentially Renfrow out of the backfield. We expect them to try to take advantage of our linebacking unit, so as a result, PFF golden child Pete Werner will be getting his first career start for Cancun. We will also be utilizing a lot of Cover 2 to aid in the out of the backfield attack, Match coverage to deny out breaking routes in the flats as well as intermediate outside the numbers, and 3 under concepts to eliminate underneath crossing routes, while we will be limiting man coverage (except for on the outside in single WR sets) to deny this approach, and forcing someone on the outside to beat White and Jones, which we don't think they'll be able to consistently do.

We will also be alternating even and odd fronts depending upon down and distance and personnel. If they like 4 wide, we like our ability to drop 8 on early downs on straight drop backs or send the bonus EDGE guy.

This is a base match concept in an odd front:

 

 

 

Cover 2 base look:

 

 

 

Cover 2 long yardage look:

 

 

 

We hope that if the opportunity presents itself, that we can insert Barnett in for some "rushman" looks in a 4 down look and that Quinn will continue to get to the quarterback, Rousseau will be able to stop the run and also get to Herbert if he faces a single blocker, and that we can get off the field on 3rd Down.

[bcb1213]

Shephard inactive today. Only cause he mentioned getting him involved in write up am I mentioning wr5

[Blue]

13 minutes ago, bcb1213 said:

Shephard inactive today. Only cause he mentioned getting him involved in write up am I mentioning wr5

Well, then he obviously wouldn't be getting involved, is he

[Blue]

Gotta give Bcb credit where credit is due, I don't know how he knew Najee Harris was going to eat up Denver's front seven today so he could feature him in his gameplan but I could use some lotto numbers if you've got 'em

[bcb1213]

6 hours ago, Blue said:

Gotta give Bcb credit where credit is due, I don't know how he knew Najee Harris was going to eat up Denver's front seven today so he could feature him in his gameplan but I could use some lotto numbers if you've got 'em

4, 11, 27.31.39

You're welcome 

[SirA1]

Rome takes this in a close one.

32-28

[Pickle Rick]

Not enough D for Cancun and Mahomes a little too shake this week 

[Jlash]

I like the odd front base from Cancun, I think it could be effective in a pass heavy match up. But as Blue already stated, Rome looks like it can have some success in the run game and have the horses to do it.

[pheltzbahr]

Good teams, good writeups, but Rome is the more complete squad right now.

[Scoundrel]

15 minutes ago, pheltzbahr said:

Good teams, good writeups, but Rome is the more complete squad right now.

I second this. I think there are a lot of teams Cancun would have beaten with this gameplan. Rome is not one of them unfortunately this week. 

[RuskieTitan]

Interesting. Going with Rome in a close one, I like what both teams did but Rome's got a slight edge on roster atm.

[Ragnarok]

So, since Milano was out, Rome is running a 3-3-5 with LVE, Bolton, and Campbell?  

[Ragnarok]

3 hours ago, Ragnarok said:

So, since Milano was out, Rome is running a 3-3-5 with LVE, Bolton, and Campbell?  

Cause I feel like Mahomes would absolutely violate that trio.