BDL 2017 Week 11: London Monarchs @ Rome Eternals

[Whicker]

BDL 2017 Week 11: 

Vote for who you think would win the game.

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Players that have a (D) next to their name indicate that they are doubtful or unlikely to play. Players with (GTD) are game-time decisions.

[Whicker]

London Lineup:

QB- Marcus Mariota
RB- CJ Anderson
WR- Brandin Cooks
WR- Willie Snead
WR- Marqise Lee
TE- Delanie Walker
LT- Eric Fisher
LG- Kyle Long
C- Jason Kelce
RG- Zack Martin
RT- Rick Wagner

-----------------------------
RB- Ty Montgomery
RB- Darren McFadden
WR- John Brown
WR- JJ Nelson
WR- Robby Anderson
WR- Donte Moncrief
OL- Dion Dawkins
OL- Cole Toner

 

DE- Khalil Mack
DT- Marcel Dareus
DT- Kyle Williams
DE- Jerry Hughes
LB- Kwon Alexander
LB- Mark Barron
CB- Malcolm Butler
CB- Tre'Davious White
CB- Adoree Jackson
S- Earl Thomas
S- Tony Jefferson

-------------------------------------

CB- Joe Haden
CB- Rashard Robinson
DE- Jordan Willis
LB- Karlos Dansby
DT- Maliek Collins
S- Miles Killebrew
S- Justin Evans

 

 

Rome Eternals

QB Drew Brees

RB Todd Gurley

Hback  OJ Howard

WR Amari Cooper

WR Michael Crabtree

TE Austin Seferian Jenkins

LT Riley Reiff

LG Stefan Wiśniewski

C Brandon Linder

RG Ramon Foster

RT Marcus Gilbert

 

RB Theo Riddick

WE Juju Smith Schuster

RB Adrian Peterson

OL  Justin Britt

WR Corey Coleman

OT Charles Leno Jr

WR Tedd Ginn Jr

FB Tommy Bohanon

 

Edge Dante Fowler Jr

DI Michael Brockers

DI Dalvin Tomlinson

Edge Carlos Dunlap

LB CJ Mosley

LB Wesley Woodyard

CB Janoris Jenkins

NCB Nickell Robley Coleman

CB Prince Amukamara

S  Pat Chung

S  Jahleel Addae

 

Edge Takk McKinley

Edge Vinny Curry

DI Malcolm Brown

DL Alan Brancht

CB William Jackson III

CB Marlon HUmphrey

S Shawn Williams

LB Patrick Onwuasor

 

[Whicker]

London Gameplan:

Offense
Pistol & Single Back- Our primary formations for this week will be to spread the field with three receivers and have Mariota line up in the pistol and single back under center. We will be utilizing a variety of misdirection plays out of these formations, including bootlegs out of the single back and run-pass read options from the pistol. This should keep the defense honest and allow us to have success running the football in the box against their line. We will also use Cooks and Snead in motion for some jet sweeps as well as fakes to exploit the defense.

Trust the Offensive Line- We feel that we have a strength in our offensive line, and we want to take advantage of it this game. Having spread the field with 3 receivers should clear out the box some, and we like our big boys up from to win their matchups and execute double team blocks up to the second level with success. CJ Anderson will be the bell cow this game, and should find good success with his one cut and go. Once he gets rolling it'll allow Mariota to get opportunities on bootlegs and option keepers to punish their perimeter.

Take Some Deep Shots- Once we establish the running game we will be sprinkling in some deep shots to Cooks and Snead, with Walker as the safety valve, off of the playaction pass. With the defense having to key on the run we should have a few opportunities to blow the lid off the top, and if nothing is there Mariota will just scramble for whatever the defense allows.

 

Defense
Nickel Base 1 Safety High- If Rome comes out with a 3 wide set we will counter with our nickel package. Jackson has really improved over the past several weeks and has the speed to smother Ted Ginn. Having Earl Thomas back is a huge boost for our defense, and will allow us to play Tony Jefferson near the line to prevent Gurley from getting going.

Blitzes- With Earl Thomas back, we are going to be a lot more liberal with blitzes in this matchup. We will trust to leave our corners in man coverage the majority of the time, but we'll throw in a number of zone coverage blitzes to confuse Brews into making a poor decision. We will use a variety of blitzers, including our DBs, and drop our DEs into the flats if they try to perform some quick passes.

Move Mack Around- We know that they know we have Khalil Mack. We are going to give him as many opportunities to pass rush 1 on 1 as possible. We will move him around on both the left and right side of the line, we'll have blitzes coming from the opposite side to ensure we punish them if they doubled Mack, and when we want 7 in the box and take a DB out, we'll go with a 5-2 primary look, adding Collins to the interior, having Williams slide over and keeping Hughes and Mack on the edges, although at times we'll take Mack off the line and disguise where he'll be coming from.

 

 

 

Motivati

After a poor start to our season, we need to win every game.  We will not be looking past London as we know they are looking desperately for their first win.

 

Offense

Todd Gurley leads our attack this week against a solid defense coming from Oklahoma City.  The key to being successful against this defense is to stop Khalil Mack.  We plan on chipping or double teaming him on every single passing play to make sure Brees has enough time to be successful.

Expect our offense to be run heavy for this contest.   The best way to slow down an excellent pass rush duo is to use their aggressiveness against them.  We will institute a lot of draws and power o’s this week that will let the edges run themselves out of the play.  We feel that if Gurley can get to the second level, he should do well against a LB pair who struggle against the run.

We will instittute a base 2 TE offense this week with Howard playing more of an Hback type of role where he will mostly maintain blocking responsibities.  We feel the power running game can also be instituted more this week due to our lineup and our opponent.  With Gilbert, Foster and Linder, we feel we have a huge advantage up front on the right side and will design a lot of our runs to go that direction.  Gurley has been a beast this year and we plan to give him 25 or more touches simply from the run game alone.

London has a couple solid youngsters in their secondary but we still like our matchups in this one.  We will definitely go after Malcolm Butler this week as he has been struggling a bit so far this season.  With an emphasis on the run game this week, we feel this is the week we can use a lot more play action then normal to get a couple deep shots down the field.  Sefarian Jenkins will be working the middle of the field and Gurley will be a checkdown option for any blitzing.  AP will get a couple carries and Riddick will come in on occasion to give the defense a major pass catching back to worry about.

In long down and distance, we bring in Ginn and JuJU in a four wide look with OJ staying on the line to help with Mack before becoming the checkdown option

 

TL?DR     More run heavy this week.  Work off of playaction.  Long drives that will tire out the defense and keep ours fresh, Eliminate Mack from making a difference

 

Defense

 

For the second week in a row, we draw a mobile QB. We had success against Cam last week, and we are prepared for the option based option we are clearly going to see,

We will lineup in our base nickel defense.  However, we will have TE eraser Patrick Chung in the box over Delanie Walker.  On the outside, Jenkins draws Cooks with help over the top , Prince gets Lee, while Nickel Robley-Coleman gets a start in the nickel against Willie Snead.    Our LB will rotate against the RB depending on who is blitzing.  We like the physicalness of our corners and we will be using a heavy man scheme this week against a solid, if unspectacular group of weapons,

The first goal of stopping a Marcus Mariota offense is keeping him in the pocket and making him throw accurately and quickly.  If you give Mariota time and room to be creative, he will have some success.  Thus we will be blitzing up the middle just about every play.  Both of our edges are responsible for a contain pass rush.  With Brockers and Tomlinson eating up blockers inside, we should be able to get Mosely or Woodyard on free runs at Mariota up the middle.  Leaning on our corners to maintain coverage this game, we feel we can force Marcus into some early mistakes and win the turnover battle much like the Steelers did against him this week.  If you force Marcus to this route, the mistakes will occur.  We will also be occasionally zone blitzing just to make Mariota that much more uncomfortable in the pocket and test his quick decision making skills.

 

Stopping the option

This Cover one high safety concept also allows us to put 8 in the box and snuff out any attempts at the option based attack.  We will be keying in on Mariota throughout the contest.  In an option based offense our blitzer will continue to gun for him and punish Marcus every play thats an option.  This should leave the youngster bruised and battered for the second half.  With the extra man in the box and our DE maintaining edges, we feel the extra man in the box and our meat wall middle can snuff out the RB in an option based attack

We will have some extra d lineman ready for the no huddle after extensive practice on switching this week   If London comes out run heavy, we will insert Brown into the lineup for a corner and run a makeshift 5-2 again maintaining our outside responsibilities

 

TL/DR:  Make Mariota beat us through the air.  Maintain edge responsibilities, lean on excellent corner trio and contain the option to inside attempts while punishing the QB for the playcall.

[DingoLadd]

Rome in a close one they have the better overall gameplan and they were ready for London's pistol based offense.

[SirA1]

London by a FG

24-21

[pheltzbahr]

Vry good defensive gameplan from Rome.  Don't think Mariota will be very effective even with the strong line.

[Xmad]

I like rome's gameplan a bit more and Mariota just isn't playing well enough right now.

[MD4L]

Somewhat of a vent but I'm not sure how Robby Anderson hasn't cracked the starting WR spot over Snead

[MD4L]

Rome is a bit better, healthier, and a stronger writeup. Rome 27-London 20

[Ragnarok]

Rome with the slight edge.  

[Scoundrel]

Rome. Good gameplan but close enough this one took a reread:

[Whicker]

I really don't like how the first two paragraphs of Rome's offensive gameplan is a copy/paste from last week, including leaving Oklahoma City in it.

That being said, they do have a better team at the moment and the rest of their gameplan was good.

[WFLukic]

Rome takes it. Solid line up. London continuing to put out some strong performances, win should come soon.

[PR]

I think the difference maker here is the focus of the pass rush for Rome. Their main goal is to throw enough people at the pocket and someone will get through. This would work for weaker interiors, but London sports one of the better interiors of the league. Mariota gets enough time to make plays with the spread.

[Jlash]

1 hour ago, PR said:

This would work for weaker interiors, but London sports one of the better interiors of the league.

I was going to make this point. In an absolute squeaker, Rome sells out on a blitz and Cooks scores a big TD to make the difference.

Upset city this week.