BDL 2022 Week 11 - Ivory Coast Black Rhinos @ Cuba Smugglers

[RedGold]

BDL 2022 Week 11

Match:  Ivory Coast Black Rhinos @ Cuba Smugglers

 Away Owner: @RuskieTitan  @ny92mike

Home Owner:  @MD4L

 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

[RedGold]

Ivory Coast Black Rhinos

Ivory Coast Offense

QB - Aaron Rodgers

RB - Nick Chubb

WR - Terry McLaurin

WR - Amon-Ra St. Brown

TE - Evan Engram

TE - Noah Fant

LT - Trent Williams

LG - Damien Lewis

OC - Jason Kelce

RG - Zack Martin

RT - Kelvin Beachum

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RB - Ezekiel Elliott

RB - Leonard Fournette

WR - Curtis Samuel

WR - Chase Claypool

TE - Albert Okwuegbunam

OL - Joshua Ezeudu

OL - Teven Jenkins

OL - Josh Jones

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Ivory Coast Defense

DE - Myles Garrett

DT - Teair Tart

DT - Da'Ron Payne

DE - Khalil Mack

MLB - Devin White

SLB - Bobby Okereke

CB - Trevon Diggs

CB - AJ Terrell

NCB - Samuel Womack

S - Eddie Jackson

S - Kyle Dugger

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DE - Darrell Taylor

DE - Amaré Barno

DE - Josh Sweat

DT -  Devonte Wyatt

DT - Jarran Reed

LB - Patrick Queen

CB - Darnay Holmes

S - Ashtyn Davis

 

 

 

 

Cuba

 

QB: Tom Brady
RB: Dalvin Cook
WR: Justin Jefferson
WR: Rondale Moore
WR: Mike Williams
TE: Mo Alie-Cox
LT: Charles Cross
LG: Elgton Jenkins 
C - Connor Williams
RG: Ezra Cleveland
RT: Lane Johnson

RB: Travis Etienne
RB: Jamaal Williams
RB: Nyheim Hines
WR: DJ Chark
WR: Keenan Allen
WR: Braxton Berrios 
OL: Donovan Smith
OL: Brian O’Neill

 

DE: Zach Allen
DT: DJ Reader
DT: Zach Sieler
Edge: Maxx Crosby
WLB: Jerome Baker
MLB: Eric Kendricks 
SLB: Myles Jack
RCB: Martin Emerson
FS: Justin Reid
SS: Derwin James
LCB: Denzel Ward

 

Edge/SAM: Haason Riddick
Edge: Rashad Weaver 
Edge: Dante Fowler Jr.
DT: Lawrence Guy
DB: Alontae Taylor
RCB: Rasul Douglas
NCB: Kader Kohou
S: Jalen Mills

Edited November 20, 2022 by RedGold

[RedGold]

Ivory Coast

Motivation: Keep things rolling against Cuba.

Offense

Primary Formation: 21 (I-Form, Pro set, Shotgun), 11 & 12 (Single Back, Shotgun and Bunch formations)

Running Game Focus:

Nick Chubb will be the bellcow of our backfield. Cuba is light inside, so we’re going to run up the middle behind All-Pro center Jason Kelce. We’ll keep wanting to pound their interior and wear them down over the course of the game. We’ll monitor Zeke during the game and give him some touches if he’s doing well, Fournette will also earn some snaps. 

• Establish the run early and often, setting up the play action pass

• Leverage double team inside blocks to get to the second level (linebackers)

• Use delays and counters to catch the defense off-balance

• Feed the Chubb

Passing Game Focus:

We’re going to use pre-snap motion to allow Rodgers to read the defense and make adjustments at the line. We’re going to focus on keeping Rodgers upright, featuring chips and blocks by our tight ends and backs. We’ll use our two tight ends to also shift around on the offense and see if we can’t get a mismatch in coverage.

• Keep Rodgers upright

• Utilize the play action pass

• 5 step drop, attacking the intermediate zones and striving for consistent first downs

• Take advantage of our athletic tight ends and shift them out for mismatch opportunities

• Against Zone we’ll utilize flood concepts against one side of the field

• Against Man we’ll feature slants, rub routes, and stop-and-go routes

Defense

Defensive Formation:

The 4-2-5 alignment will be the primary alignment against three receiver sets. Payne and Tart will man the middle, with Garrett and Mack on the edges. Devin White and Bobby Okereke are the off-ball linebackers, with White being the primary linebacker stepping up to the line. Our trio of cornerbacks will be Samuel Womack, Trevon Diggs, and AJ Terrell. We welcome Terrell back, and plan to use Diggs and Terrell as our boundary corners, with Womack manning the slot. When Cuba goes with 2 receivers or fewer, Diggs will come out, and Patrick Queen will come on to take the weak-side linebacker spot, with Bobby Okereke taking the strong side and Devin White holding the middle. Jackson and Dugger will operate at the safety spots, with Jackson being the primary deep safety in cover-1. If and when Cuba uses 4 receivers, we’ll counter by having Okereke come out and bring in Darnay Holmes as the dime back. If they ever go 5 wide, we’ll play a mixture of zone coverages with 4-1-6 personnel. 

Against the Pass:

Brady hates pressure up the middle, so we’re going to have our defensive interior focused on penetration and eliminating room to step up in the pocket. We’re confident our edges will collapse the pocket around him, and really knock him off his game. We’ll sprinkle some wide 9 alignments with our edges on obvious passing downs, as well as throw our pass rushers on the field together.

• Pressure Brady up the middle

• Utilize A-gap blitzes with linebackers

• Use the wide nine alignment on third and longs (8+ yards)

• Use Sweat, Mack, and Garrett together on certain third and long packages

Against the Run:

We want to limit the damage done by their backfield, and will have the defense swarm to the football. If needed, one of the safeties will drop into the box for additional support, regardless of cover 1 or cover 2 post-snap. Dalvin has 16 career fumbles including 9 over the last 3 seasons, so once one of the defenders has secured Cook the others will go for the ball to try and force a turnover.

• Swarm to the ball carrier and secure tackles

• Once ball carrier is secured, take opportunities to try and force fumbles

• Utilize a safety in the box pre-snap to provide additional support against the run if needed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cuba

 

 

Intro

Embrace the situation. Prepare for success. Playing playoff intensity level games in the regular season. Earn our stripes now.

 

Offense

We want to get Brady going in a quickly operating pass offense that emphasizes getting the ball out quickly. Ivory Coast might key in on some of our 2 RB sets so we’ll come out in our more usual 11 personnel. Justin Jefferson will command a significant target share and we like his matchups across the board. We get potentially 3 receivers back from injury so the surrounding cast next to Jefferson is better from a talent and depth perspective. Jefferson is our focal point. We like throwing him inside a little bit more with Allen serving as WR4 and Moore starting to show an ability to win outside. Moore will be the 2nd most played snaps WR this week in any capacity as we want him working with Jefferson on stack plays that get Jefferson into crossing patterns or out routes with Moore going underneath. Moore keeps a relatively low DoT that serves Brady’s prerogative to throw short and let the YAC opportunities maximize itself. 

Mike Williams, Keenan Allen, and DJ Chark all potentially return this week with Chark and Allen near certainties for Sunday. They will all play and rotate snaps to get an evaluation of who’s healthy. We will stick with one if the other two are not healthy in the 2nd half, but Brady will work to get all 3 players touches early. Allen is the seamless fit but is expected to play on 45% of snaps with an emphasis to get him involved. His early targets are drag patterns from the slot and a couple slant when stacked next to Jefferson, particularly if Jefferson is getting double teamed. We will isolate Mike Williams and keep him involved with mid level routes. This consists of in cuts, and back shoulder fades. His main goal if healthy is being a big body target who allows us to stack Jefferson with Allen or Moore and potentially take up a significant share of opportunities from Brady. Lastly, Chark is the one we know will play. He is going to do lots of clear out routes and we will let him run deep with flood concepts to defeat zone coverage or bunch and run to free Jefferson on underneath patterns against soft coverage. If it’s man, we will let Chark and Allen run pick routes that free Jefferson in the middle of the field. Allen runs flats or slants, Jefferson comes underneath on drag concepts and Chark runs comeback routes deeper down the field. We will also use Chark on at least one reverse play to assure he gets the ball.

 

Brady will use a fair share of play action as we keep our backs involved. Etienne gets a slight edge on carries as we commit to a 55/45 split of playing with Cook getting more snaps. We value Cook’s pass blocking and his ability in the running game serves more benefit on play action passes. We will run a flea flicker with Cook in the game as well with Chark going deep as we think there is going to be an expectation of us wanting to commit to the run. Cook will test the outside on his carries as we try stretch zone and toss plays allowing him to get to the edge. We have some play action that still throws him the ball on check downs anyway so our goal is giving him 12-15 touches with 3-4 being as a receiver. Etienne’s goal is getting 18 touches with most of them coming in the form of traditional carries. Etienne ideally gets his touches on 2nd downs as Brady’s quick timing passing game will keep us in 2nd 3-6s rather than 2nd and 10. We have receivers capable of stretching and striking fear in defenses so we think in the 2nd half we can utilize more inside zones and traditional run plays with Etienne getting into the second level creating some big plays for our run game. Etienne’s touches are more scripted and obvious. If he’s in the game, we are probably giving it to him in traditional fashion. 

Jamaal Williams is our redzone and our goal line back. We will put Donovan Smith at FB on short yardage and Brian O’Neill at TE with Williams when in scoring range. Cook is our non redzone short yardage specialist.

We feel very comfortable with Lane Johnson on the edge so we can commit most of our pass protection help to Myles Garrett. We still utilize a TE and while Cox runs routes, most of his day is chipping and helping Cross. We will motion the TE from right to left, we will line him at the slot before motioning him to the left help, and we will line him up next to Cross to give the help different looks. Dalvin Cook will also assist in pass pro so Garrett is not single handedly ruining our gameplan. Elgton Jenkins will also set out to help Cross when possible. Additionally, Brady’s quick tilted release will help within itself against Garrett this week.

 

Defense

There are two gameplans for Ivory Coast. One is based on them playing in 11 personnel and bringing our 6 man fronts and the other is them committing to 2 TEs or RBs. Regardless of how we lineup, stopping Nick Chubb at all costs is the goal. One way to stop Nick Chubb is containing him, filling up holes, and giving him zero space to operate, and yet he still produces as evident by a strong offensive line. The other way is simply scoring enough points that Ivory Coast can’t commit their entire workload offensively to him and we’re more intent with the latter strategy. We started Zach Allen at EDGE for that reason as we now have 3 bigger DL on the field. DJ Reader’s return also comes at a perfect time. We will keep him on a snap count this week but he will see most of his reps on early downs. Ideally we can score enough points that he’s strictly a rotational player this week, but the point is having him helps our entire defensive front.

We added solid depth when we aim to rush the passer, although Trent Williams is elite on his side. The Derwin James/Maxx Crosby stunts were unnoticed last week and we like the idea of mixing that in on passing downs when we move Derwin to the second level of defense. Haason Riddick playing SLB is more of an attempt to get him on the field but we would like to primarily make his role as a pass rusher today. We will keep the creativity going with Riddick rushing from the second level and being paired with Crosby on some twists that free either up in one on one situations against Kelvin Beachum. Newly acquired Dante Fowler will rush against Williams, and Rashad Weaver will get a fair share of run when we go traditional with 2 Edge rushers.

The second level will include all 3 of our starting LBs in base packages for the first time. Baker and Kendricks are the full time players while Jack can commit to Chubb alert. The 12 base package Ivory Coast operated from last week possess solid receiving TEs so if we had to play in man coverage, Kendricks and Baker cover the TEs, Jack covers Chubb. The same applies in 2 RB sets although we will turn up the notch and bring an extra rusher considering Rodgers is unlike himself against blitzes. When we downsize to 1 LB, it will be Kendricks with James coming down to handle more receiving friendly personnel for Ivory Coast.

Denzel Ward showed well last week and we will let him cover Terry McLaurin when we play man coverage. We don’t commit to it every play but when we do, Ward follows Terry throughout. There will be occasional safety help but we will let our best cover their best isolated. Likewise, Emerson covering Terry on zone will almost exclusively be with safety help deep. Jalen Mills will be the safety help when Derwin moves into the 2nd level. When we base in man coverage, Emerson will play Amon-Ra St. Brown with Taylor eager to play snaps if there are some struggles. Emerson struggles with speed WRs but St. Brown is a competitive one that should feature wins for both sides. Kohou and Taylor split reps against 3 WRs, and Taylor is the emergency safety as we actively work him into the field.

A heavy man coverage team usually plays man on 50% of snaps so that rate is fairly accurate for us this week. We mix in the book with coverages although we shy away from cover 2. Cover 3 is played on 25% of snaps, with cover 4 and 6 at about 10% of our defensive snaps.

Edited November 20, 2022 by RedGold

[Scoundrel]

Still reading/rereading but Cuba came out in the ideal defense to match the 12 personnel of IC. The big dline will give them optimal run defense opportunities while Maxx Crosby can get after it and Zach Allen has the ability to apply pressure also. It’s one week and I like to look at a seasons sample size but tough week to have your two bell cow backs go for a combined 2.1 rushing yards per carry and your top one go for 1.4. The two TDs are nice from Zeke but the way Pollard ran for 5.3 per carry against the same defense doesn’t bode well. Although I do know they use Zeke on those shorter to go situations to grind out the tough yards so that has to be considered but might be tougher to do against that front of Cuba. Another solid matchup I’ll continue to evaluate. 

[Blue]

"Chark is the one we know will play" and gets one target for zero catches. Woof.

I think Jefferson does better here with Brady than he did IRL against the Boys, but not a whole lot. It's a strong DL for Ivory Coast and even with Denzel Ward in the lineup, I don't know that Cuba can get after Rodgers with Maxx Crosby the only legitimate pass rushing threat. Ivory Coast didn't talk about limiting Crosby, even though they mentioned chips, which would have made this a bit easier.

I'm going Cuba here because they called the run-heavy offense and planned accordingly, plus I really like their beefy red zone gameplan.

[Scoundrel]

9 minutes ago, Blue said:

"Chark is the one we know will play" and gets one target for zero catches. Woof.

I think Jefferson does better here with Brady than he did IRL against the Boys, but not a whole lot. It's a strong DL for Ivory Coast and even with Denzel Ward in the lineup, I don't know that Cuba can get after Rodgers with Maxx Crosby the only legitimate pass rushing threat. Ivory Coast didn't talk about limiting Crosby, even though they mentioned chips, which would have made this a bit easier.

I'm going Cuba here because they called the run-heavy offense and planned accordingly, plus I really like their beefy red zone gameplan.

Another in sync vote with Blue 

 

I loved Cuba’s plan. Specifically on defense. I think it matches up perfectly with what IC wants to do. And I kind of already mentioned much of that above. I do like the IC plan to pressure Brady up the middle and think their Hydra has some success on the edges in that wide 9. I just think Cuba gets more stops and does enough on offense to get the win.

[LAOJoe]

I don't think Cuba runs wild on offense. IC should do well enough to limit them, but ya, Cuba's defensive plan slaps.

[VigilantZombie]

I do think it's worth mentioning that like Williams left the game after re aggravating his injury that he came into the game with.

DJ Chark Did not have a single catch and his 1st game back.

Rondale Moore also did not have a single catch this week, though tbf He suffered a groin injury very early in this game.

Keenan Allen However had a great game in his return

[Scoundrel]

1 hour ago, wwhickok said:

Rondale Moore also did not have a single catch this week, though tbf He suffered a groin injury very early in this game.

Got hurt on his first touch in the first series

[VigilantZombie]

Now after reading everything, I have got to go Cuba. I understand that a couple of guys didn't do much coming back from injury. The rondale moore injury I'm not about To hold against Cuba As I don't think it has any relevance here. I think both of these teams Have very good rosters, but Cuba's gameplan was absolutely on point. Even if I had to take a break from reading it because I felt like through the passing game I was reading the same thing over and over I know I wasn't but it did feel that way, When I got through everything I mean they just did a really good job here. I've gotta go Cuba I think it would be a competitive game, But I do think Cuba wins by a pair of scores. 

31-21 Cuba

Edited November 24, 2022 by wwhickok

[VigilantZombie]

35 minutes ago, Scoundrel said:

Got hurt on his first touch in the first series

Ik i mentioned that in my vote explanation

[bcb1213]

5 minutes ago, wwhickok said:

Ik i mentioned that in my vote explanation

I think he was just going into further details for those who didn't know

[VigilantZombie]

Just now, bcb1213 said:

I think he was just going into further details for those who didn't know

Truth