BDL 2023 Week 2 - Cuba Smugglers @ Baltimore Corviknights

[RedGold]

BDL 2023 Week 2

Match:  Cuba Smugglers @ Baltimore Corviknights

 Away Owner:  @MD4L

Home Owner:   @everyone

 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]

Cuba

QB: Deshaun Watson
RB: Travis Etienne
WR: Justin Jefferson
WR: Calvin Ridley
WR: Zay Flowers
TE: Dawson Knox
LT: Elgton Jenkins
LG: Ezra Cleveland
C - Jason Kelce
RG: Wyatt Teller
RT: Darnell Wright

RB: Samaje Perine
RB: Jamaal Williams
RB: Zach Charbonnet
WR: Puka Nacua
WR: Rondale Moore
OL: Jonah Williams
OL: Mekhi Becton
TE: Austin Hooper
 

Edge: Rashan Gary
DT: Dre’Mont Jones
NT: David Onyemata 
Edge: Bradley Chubb
WLB: Leighton Vander Esch
MLB: Bobby Okereke
RCB: Xavien Howard
FS: Chauncey Gardner-Johnson
SS: Derwin James
NCB: Alontae Taylor
LCB: Denzel Ward

Edge: Lukas Van Ness
Edge: Rashad Weaver
DT: Karl Brooks
DT: Derrick Nnadi
LB: Henry To’Oto’O
RCB: Martin Emerson
NCB: Kader Kohou 
S: Vonn Bell

 

 

Baltimore

QB Lamar Jackson

RB Alex Mattison

WR Mike Evans

WR Jahan Dotson

TE George Kittle

TE Logan Thomas

LT Penei Sewell

LG  Jonah Jackson

C Creed Humphrey

RG Alex Cappa

RT Morgan Moses

 

QB Brock Purdy

RB Jaylen Warren

RB Justice Hill

FB Connor Heyward

WR Darnell Mooney

WR KJ Osborne

WR Devin Duvernay

OL Luke Goedeke

 

Edge Brian Burns

INT Leonard Williams

INT Javon Hargrave

Edge Kwitty Paye

LB Bobby Wagner

LB Cody Barton

CB Chidobie Awuzie

CB Byron Murphy

CB Jeremy Chinn

S Xavier McKinney

S Jevon Holland

 

Edge Odafe Oweh

DL AJ Epensa

INT Raekwon Davin

LB Leo Chanal

LB Zaven Collins

CB Michael Jackson

S Xavier Woods

Edited September 17, 2023 by RedGold

[RedGold]

Cuba

Intro: 1-0 after a good win vs an excellent Lancaster team. Looking to start 2-0 with a big game against Baltimore. We have no film on them so we’ll bring our best and expect the unexpected.

 

Offense

Baltimore has an array of excellent chess pieces in their secondary but Carlton Davis is out. They have 3 CBs healthy listed on their roster so we will have opportunities to find one of Zay Flowers or Calvin Ridley against a safety playing nickel or Michael Jackson in coverage. We want to test that matchup early and often. We also want to use Jefferson’s ability to win across the field as a focal point of our offense. Putting him in the slot helps isolate another CB with Ridley and Flowers on the boundary. We like the idea of stacking those 2 together and letting Watson find the open man. Watson is still  progressing his ability to read the field again so having an obvious matchup in our favor figures to be a tremendous start in putting together a quality performance.

Of course, because Watson has not been what we know he’s capable of, we will continue making a commitment to the running game. Watson himself can help as a runner but we want to use him and Etienne together on read option plays. We also want Etienne to get more run up the middle against a Cam Heyward-less Baltimore front. Using our interior blockers (Cleveland/Kelce/Teller) to create running room for Etienne is definitely feasible and he proved to be capable of big plays in open space. We like the idea of getting some toss plays with Kelce pulling to the right side as that’s proven to be our stronger side in terms of running the football. We want to wear down Brian Burns on the edge, making our intention to run the ball an important byproduct of our offensive strategy.

Our passing game possess dynamic weapons capable of winning games individually. Ridley and Jefferson have started strong with Jefferson in particular proving to be a difficult cover against elite CBs or forms of double coverage. Watson will pepper Jefferson with targets in the second half as we open up our play action passing. In the early going, we want to script plays toward Ridley as Jefferson will inevitably deal with multiple guys in coverage. Ridley isolated gives us a tremendous opportunity to use a WR1 in a heavily sided battle that we can use to our advantage. Zay Flowers showed promise as an underneath weapon and will give Watson a short-DOT option that can turn 1-2 yard passes to first down type of gains. Flowers will also extend vertically on half of his routes and will spell Jefferson or Ridley on breathers to get Puka Nacua on the field with opportunities for Flowers to get deeper down the field. Rondale Moore will get a couple of snaps as a Flowers sub and will have a handful of those snaps serving as backfield options before motioning to help diagnose man zone looks for Watson.

Lastly, our offensive line gets a small reshuffle with Charles Cross out. Elgton Jenkins will move to the blind side allowing Ezra Cleveland an opportunity to start, while Darnell Wright gets the start at RT. Wright immediately showed an ability in run blocking and will be useful in our efforts to get Travis Etienne involved in the running game. We would like to have 4 and 5 man concepts in our pass game but will have a special eye on Brian Burns as a pass rusher. We will use some stunts, whether the guard helping the Tackle or (more likely) moving our TE to assist in pass pro. Dawson Knox being scarcely featured in the pass game has something to do with our receivers but also plays into the importance of helping in pass protection as a chip. We will incorporate some two TE sets with he and Austin Hooper, while Hooper will get about 20% of the snaps solely due to his ability to help as a pass blocker. Samaje Perine will also be the next man up after Etienne due to his ability in the passing game. We will give him one or two check down targets but using him as help in pass pro gives Knox more leeway to run underneath and gives additional assistance to our tackles. With some injures to Baltimore’s front 4, we definitely catch them at the right time.

 

Defense

We reinforce the mantra for this week: Expexr the unexpected. We totally expect Lamar Jackson to play this week but cannot acknowledge the impossibility Brock Purdy gets the call. Jackson poses more attention due to his running ability but Purdy has proven sturdy as a passer. While the QB factor presence unpredictability, we do have a very predictable outlook on Baltimore’s running game. Alexander Mattison has been unable to put together a strong performance yet this season and we can continue that if he’s paired with Purdy at QB. If it is Lamar, we’ll copy our strategy last week and roll over Derwin James and/or Vonn Bell into the box and give someone who can attack the RPOs so Jackson cannot simply test the side he wants to rush. Derwin will have some responsibility as a pseudo LB allowing Vonn Bell or CGJ to come down into the box. We want Alontae Taylor to run a couple of blitzes as well due to his ability to tackle in the open field.

Regardless of QB, we’ll be more zone friendly this week. Particularly with Jackson, expect a zone approach with a couple cover zero looks to collapse the pocket and make Jackson have to get the ball out quickly. Mike Evans will get most of the safety help while in our pure zone looks, we’ll be aware of Jahan Dotson’s ability to go deep. In our man cover sets (we’ll run them about 25%), Howard will cover Evans while Ward gets Dotson. Kittle gets Derwin James. The remaining slot gets Taylor. 

Continuing on Kittle, our goal is finding ways to limit him as a team. His impact on games does not rely on him as a pass catcher, so we will throw Dre’Mont Jones to the edge on some early down rush friendly attempts to keep Sieler and Onyemata on the field. This also helps in limiting Rashan Gary’s snaps despite him likely playing a big presence in our ambition to stop the run. Gary, Van Ness, and Chubb will rotate snaps on the edge. Van Ness will get more run if Purdy starts but Chubb’s biggest responsibility is keeping integrity on the edge with Lamar Jackson on the field. Karl Brooks impressed us enough to get run on the field and will be a rotational rusher on passing downs. Van Ness will also get a quarter of his total snaps (ideally 40% total DEF snaps), as an interior rusher on our nascar sets. We like our matchup opposite Sewell so we want Gary against that OT on our pass rush certainty downs. If Jackson is the starter, our nascar packages have less significance as we will be wary of our spy on the 2nd level preparing for his dual threat ability.

 

 

 

Baltimore

Offense 

We open this week in a two TE look.  We will be using a lot of looks out of the pistol formation this week to utilize an RPO game with Lamar keeping reads simple.  The offensive line is strong here so we think we can push around the Cuba front.  We want to control the clock and make this the type of game a Lamar Jackson big run can take in the end

 

We will generally be targeting Dotson on more underneath routes while we are going to challenge Denzel Wards height if we see him matched up one on one with Mike Evans with some jump ball opportunities.  Kittle will get his share of looks as always while Thomas serves as an excellent underneath safety blanket for Lamar.  With the athleticism of our line we want to roll Jackson out and force coverage lanes to change and buy time for our guys to get open

 

Witht he heavy RPO based offense, Mattison won’t have many decisions to make and can just slash through the hole vacated by an edge waiting for Jackson.  We feel this type of downhill running suits his style more than the dance around type of plays that other more athletic RB excel at.  Warren serves as a third down back with Hill there for added depth

 

In the passing game we want to hit all three levels and will bring in Mooney into the slot for three wide with Osborne serving as the fourth WR.  All four of these WR bring something different whether it be speed, size, route running and toughness.  The added advantage of the RPO is we can sneak Kittle or Thomas behind a jumping Linebacker when they are in zone with a large empty area behind it up the seams.  Luckily we have two excellent big bodied TE with hands to make the plays needed.  Between Jackson and all the size we have, red zone TD shouldn’t be an issue

 

Defense

This week we face a formidable offense.  We know there are few teams who would be able to match up with this WR talent so we are going to lean heavily into a cover two zone with some cover four and three mixed in.  Watson hasn’t shown yet that he has the deep ball working in Cleveland and has mainly been hitting the underneath stuff.  A cover two is going to force him to be accurate down the field with our ball hawking safeties waiting for any inaccurate throws.  We will be using Chinn in the slot for this reason to run more a three safety look.  

 

Up front Hargrave and Williams look to push the pocket with Paye holding the right edge in a contain while we let Burns go after Watson.  The Cuba running game led by Etienne is solid but we figure they are going to want to lean on the pass game this week with our corner group and their WR weapons.   We are going to line up Williams next to Kwitty and let him go one on one with the RG while Hargrave all Cuba’s attention goes to stopping Burns on the left side with Jonah Williams, i guess, starting at LT.  We will bring pressure up the gut to Watson’s right to the exposed side of the line.  The guy staying in can’t block both Burns and the blitzer

Edited September 17, 2023 by RedGold

[Blue]

I like the run focus from Baltimore this week, especially with Cuba light in the pants at defensive tackle, and frankly, I can't get the image of Deshaun Watson's inability to function under pressure last night out of my head--and with Cuba's tackle situation, he's gonna be under pressure here. Baltimore picks up a win for their interim coach.

[TedLavie]

Both teams chose zone defense but I kinda like both OL here. Jenkins starting at LT isn't ideal but he's done it before so why not, and it's not like Baltimore edge rushers terrorize me. With time in the pocket to pick that zone apart, I think Lamar gets it done on the ground and Watson can hit his stud weapons. The difference between the two here is the running game. With Derwin James focused on RPO disruption, I think Mattison doesn't do much while I think Cuba can run the ball effectively.

Cuba 31-20

[bcb1213]

You can put me down as a Baltimore vote if xmad doesn't show up.  Otherwise I will abstain for obvious reasons having done the lineup and such for this week

[RuskieTitan]

I think Baltimore pulls away in the fourth.

[Whicker]

I really hate Deshaun Watson. 
 

idk how I’m gonna vote but I hate the man 

[rackcs]

Deshaun Watson is already not playing well and I think he'll be getting rattled this game. Meanwhile I think that despite the weak run game, this offense can really put up some numbers.

[Ragnarok]

I think injuries to the OL and Deshaun strugging is enough to give Baltimore the win.