BDL 2022 Week 1 - Gotham Gashslayers @ Camden Hood Rats

[RedGold]

BDL 2022 Week 1

Match:  Gotham Gashslayers @ Camden Hood Rats

 Away Owner:  @Whicker

Home Owner:  @Jlash

 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, 2022 by RedGold

[RedGold]

Gotham Gashslayers

QB – Trey Lance
RB – Elijah Mitchell
WR – Tyreek Hill
WR – Tee Higgins
WR – Christian Kirk
TE – George Kittle (Q)
LT – Jake Matthews
LG – Laken Tomlinson
C – Chase Roullier
RG – Shaq Mason
RT – Taylor Moton

QB – Mac Jones
RB – Clyde Edwards-Helaire
WR – Alec Pierce
WR – Laviska Shenault
TE – Adam Trautman
OL – Jack Conklin (Q)
OL – Cody Whitehair
 

Edge – Chandler Jones
Int – Chris Jones
Int – Shelby Harris
Edge – Shaq Barrett
LB – Zach Cunningham
LB – Jamin Davis
CB – Xavien Howard
CB - Ahmad Gardner
CB – Byron Jones
S – Micah Hyde
S – Tre'von Moehrig

Edge – Demarcus Lawrence
Edge – A.J. Epenesa
Int – Fletcher Cox
Int – Perrion Winfrey
LB – Germaine Pratt
LB – Christian Harris
CB – Tyson Campbell
CB – Rock Ya-Sin

 

 

 

 

Camden Hood Rats

QB- Matthew Stafford
RB- Austin Ekeler
WR- Cooper Kupp
WR- AJ Brown
WR- Mike Evans
TE- David Njoku
LT- Dion Dawkins
LG- Cesar Ruiz
C- Ben Jones
RG- Kevin Zeitler
RT- Isaiah Wynn (Q)
_____________________
RB- Damien Harris
RB- JD McKissic
WR- Treylon Burks
WR- Nico Collins
TE-Gerald Everett
OL- Taylor Lewan
OL- Will Hernandez
QB- Justin Fields

 

Flex LB- Josh Allen
DE- Yannick Ngakoue
DT- A’Shawn Robinson
DT- Davon Godchaux
DE- Montez Sweat
LB-Drue Tranquill (Q)
CB- L’Jarius Sneed
CB- Asante Samuel Jr
Slot- Chauncey Gardner-Johnson
S- Justin Simmons
S- Amani Hooker
____________________
DE/LB- Boye Mafe
DE/LB- Joseph Ossai
DL- Osa Odighizuwa
DL- Neville Gallimore
LB- Nicholas Morrow
LB- Divine Deablo
CB- CJ Henderson
S- Jaquan Brisker

Edited September 11, 2022 by RedGold

[RedGold]

Gotham

After the retirement of one of the most accomplished and venerable owners in our league, Gotham enters into a new era with a tough division matchup against another historically great owner. We plan on bringing it to the fullest each and every week to show the Gotham fans that their team is still in great hands.

 

Offense:

There is no QB controversy in Gotham. We are fully committed to Trey Lance as our starter and we want him to have full confidence as he makes his first start. We will tailor our gameplan to accentuate Lance's strengths and hide his inexperience. We will accomplish this with a gameplan full with RPOs, high percentage throws, and designed QB runs.

We will operate heavily out of the shotgun and focus early on pre-snap RPOs and quick, easy throws such as slants, screens, and curls, and our standard running game in order to establish control over the clock and get Lance comfortable in the game. Tyreek Hill will be an important piece as we move him around the formation and run him both as the target in YAC scenarios as well as deep to keep the Camden safeties honest. Tee Higgins and George Kittle will both work in the shallow and mid levels to keep the field spread and act as bigger targets especially on third down. Christian Kirk will work underneath as a YAC option and hot route. Elijah Mitchell and Clyde Edwards-Helaire will rotate evenly as the running back.

As the game develops, we will begin to mix in more deep shots by opening up more deep routes for both Hill and Higgins and utilizing play action. We will also shift our focus to movement-based RPOs with post-snap reads. At this point we will also look for a couple good opportunities to take advantage of Lance's rushing ability with some QB draws.

We believe the combination of our offensive line, Lance's athleticism, and our offensive strategy will keep Camden's pass rush from having an outsized impact on this game. We will first use our running back and then Kittle in max protect scenarios.

If Kittle doesn't play in this game, we will utilize more 4 WR sets with Alec Pierce filling in for Kittle's receiving role. We will still utilize some in-line TE with Adam Trautman.

 

Defense:

Camden comes into this game as an early BizzBowl favorite mainly on the strength of their offense. While we respect them to the utmost, we also believe that we have the tools to line up toe to toe with them and come out the victor. We will utilize a base Cover-2 man defense that attempts to get pressure with 4.

In this game we will attempt to recreate the success of the Bills' defense vs the Rams by very rarely blitzing and getting pressure on Matthew Stafford consistently with only four rushers. We will feature a heavy rotation of all of our listed defensive linemen (except Epenesa) with no player needing to play more than 70% of snaps. We will lean towards Demarcus Lawrence and Shelby Harris being on the field on running downs while Chandler Jones and Fletcher Cox will get more run on passing downs. We will move guys around and utilize stunts in order to consistently generate pressure.

Our base coverage will be a 2-Deep shell with press-man coverage. Xavien Howard and Ahmad Gardner will play sides on the outside and Byron Jones will cover the slot. Our linebackers will cover whichever is more convenient between the running back and tight end. Jamin Davis will come out first against 4 WR sets for Tyson Campbell.

We will mix in Cover-2 zone and Cover-1 robber to keep the Camden offense honest. In Cover-1 Robber, we will have Tre'von Moehrig play the Robber role with Micah Hyde remaining deep.

 

 

 

 

 

Camden Hood Rats

Offense

This week we get to face Gotham, not coached by our old rival/mentor anymore but league pro gambling man Whicker. Gotham is skilled all over but we think with a varied approach we match up well. Here are the main things we want to focus on offensively:

Bunch sets/motion to test the young CB’s: Gotham is surely expecting this, but we need to go out and see how fast the rookie corners process what they see. Expect lots of 3 WR bunch sets with guys crossing each other to see if we can get some lapses in zone or defenders getting slowed down on rubs and freeing guys up. Kupp will be in motion a lot, as a coverage identifier but also to get him all over the formation. This should also help limit the physicality of the Gotham CB group.

Flood concepts w/combo routes: Feeding off the trips/bunch sets leads us into flood concepts to overload parts of the field if Gotham is working in a zone. If Kupp motions out and the defense shows zone, expect our WR’s to adjust their combo routes to work a similar area of the field together at different levels to create chaos.

Protect Stafford: Gotham brings a lot of heat in the pressure department, so we’ll utilize TE and RB chips along with keeping Ekeler back in protection in certain long situations to make sure Stafford has time to work in a clean pocket.

Use Ekeler/Harris to pull safeties down: If there’s a weakness, at all in my mind about this defense it’s the depth of the LB’s. So we’ll run the ball early and see if the LB’s hold up, hoping to pull a safety down into the box. If we can do this, I’d imagine it would cause problems for a 2 high zone they should be running to combat my WR’s. This approach is crucial in slowing down the pass rush as well, but our main goal is to shallow up Gothams defenders and make splash plays behind them.

 

Defense (5-1 hybrid base with mixed zone coverage)
Gotham’s got a bunch of weapons. A small fast guy, a big guy who gets down the field, a normal sized guy who gets paid like a #1 and a freakishly athletic white dude. And capable RB’s. So we’ve got our work cut out for us. We want to focus on making either one of his young QB’s day harder and here are the things we want to focus on.

5-1 hybrid base: Base defenses are called million things that can look the same but for ease I’m using 5-1. I’ll have my 4 down lineman, with Josh Allen playing LB who is lined up at the LOS for a majority of the game to bring extra pressure. Allen has experience rushing the passer but also with dropping back into coverage, so we’ll use him to create some confusion and havoc for Jones/Lance. With Kittle being out, this takes a lot of pressure off of us in the middle of the field as far as big plays are concerned and could force Gotham into some max protect situations with Ngakoue and Sweat being able to bring pressure. We can line Allen up next to either Ngakoue or Sweat or Mafe or Ossai as all of them are athletic hybrid defenders who can switch off with Allen and drop back into a zone to jump in a quick passing lane.

Mixed zones: We’re going zone heavy for two reasons today. First, to be able disguise coverages a little better against two 2nd year QB’s who under pressure will need to make split decisions. Second, if Lance gets the majority of the work we want to be ready for when he runs. Zone defenders can keep their eyes towards the LOS and shouldn’t be caught running away from the QB. We’ll use a lot of cover 6 or Quarter/Quarter/Half with Hill getting the majority of the cover 2 side, but either way we’ll have the back end covered against an offense with playmakers that can get deep. From that shell we can easily transition to straight cover 2 or 3 as well.

Run game: Gotham  has capable backs, but they won’t be our main focus. Adding the 5th defender  near the LOS aids us from a number perspective alone, and our interior is stout so even if they decide to try to establish it early it shouldn't have a huge impact on our overall approach because we know where this team is more dangerous.  If Elijah Mitchell beats us in this one, so be it.

Edited September 11, 2022 by RedGold

[Whicker]

George Kittle and Jack Conklin out for me 

[Jlash]

Byron Jones was put on the PUP list weeks ago as well. @Whicker

Edited September 11, 2022 by Jlash

[SirA1]

Shenault was also inactive this week. FWIW.

I am going to go with the home team this week in Camden. I like the Gotham team as well though and expect them to bounce back when a little healthier.

 

[Whicker]

Really really awesome to see multiple votes on a game where there’s starters on both sides that haven’t played yet. Let’s run a BDL during the off-season since games don’t matter 

[SirA1]

3 minutes ago, Whicker said:

Really really awesome to see multiple votes on a game where there’s starters on both sides that haven’t played yet. Let’s run a BDL during the off-season since games don’t matter 

Who besides Shelby Harris do you have left to play? 

It was vote today or don't vote at all as I am leaving early this morning. 

[EaglesPeteC]

At the end of the day, even though Gotham has some excellent defensive players, they are going to get after Stafford. But Kupp, AJ Brown and Evans are just too good to be held down all game, and I don't know if Trey Lance can make enough plays to pull out a win. 

[Blue]

Rough break for Gotham with Lance having to play in a rainstorm. If I had a better idea of what to expect from Lance week to week, maybe he gets some benefit of the doubt, but I think Camden has too much firepower on offense for Gotham to keep up, even with Hill and Kirk having big games.

[VigilantZombie]

I think both teams did an excellent job, neither QB was terrible, neither one was amazing. However, for as good as Gothams roster is, their gameplans imo, being both really well done, i csnt ignore the firepower on offense thst Camden has and with the more experienced QB, i think they get the edge here by 1 score.

[bcb1213]

I think Gotham can have a super bright future if Jones or Lance takes a giant step this year but neither looked inspiring week one.  That combined with the Kittle and Jones injury just leaves them a couple players short despite the good plan.  I think Gotham can get a couple big runs early to keep it close as a five-one man front leaves little behind the line of scrimmage, but I don't think Lance goes mistake free which he'd need to  in order for this team to have a chance with the secondary ballhawking talent of Camden in a zone.  I'll be interested to see how these teams match up later on this season

Camden 28-17

[Pickle Rick]

No CB, no TE, poor blocking from the interior and a shaky/rattled QB for Gotham leads to a victory Camden 28-6

[MD4L]

There will be better weeks, @Whicker.

[Ragnarok]

On 9/12/2022 at 10:51 PM, Blue said:

Rough break for Gotham with Lance having to play in a rainstorm. If I had a better idea of what to expect from Lance week to week, maybe he gets some benefit of the doubt, but I think Camden has too much firepower on offense for Gotham to keep up, even with Hill and Kirk having big games.

I agree with this.  I definitely think it's the right type of gameplan for Gotham, and I think with Kittle back and Lance settling into the starting job it will prove effective in the future, but not this week.