BDL 2023 Week 3- Baltimore Corviknights @ Raleigh Firebirds

[Scoundrel]

BDL 2023 Week 3

Match:  Baltimore Corviknights @ Raleigh Firebirds

Away Owner: @Xmad

Home Owner: @EaglesPeteC 

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

[Scoundrel]

Baltimore Corviknights 

Offense:
QB: Lamar Jackson
RB: Alexander Mattison
WR: Mike Evans
WR: Jahan Dotson
WR: Darnell Mooney
TE: George Kittle
LT: Penei Sewell
LG: Jonah Jackson
C : Creed Humphrey
RG: Alex Cappa
RT: Morgan Moses

Bench:
QB: Brock Purdy
OW: Cordarrelle Patterson (Q)
RB: Jaylen Warren
RB: Michael Carter
WR: KJ Osborne
WR: Jalen Tolbert
TE: Durham Smythe
OL: Luke Goedeke

 

Defense:
DE: Brian Burns
DT: Leonard Williams
DT: Javon Hargrave
DE: Kwity Paye
LB: Bobby Wagner
LB: Cody Barton
CB: Carlton Davis (Q)
CB: Byron Murphy
FS: Xavier McKinney
SS: Jevon Holland
S/LB: Jeremy Chinn

Bench:
EDGE/LB: Zaven Collins
EDGE: A.J. Epenesa
INT: Raekwon Davis (Q)
LB: Leo Chenal
CB: Chidobe Awuzie
CB: Tre Herndon
CB: Michael Jackson
S: Xavier Woods

 

 

Raleigh Firebirds

Offense:

QB- Russell Wilson 

RB- Christian McCaffrey 

WR- Courtland Sutton

WR- Michael Thomas 

WR- TuTu Atwell

TE- Mark Andrews

LT- Jordan Mailata

LG- Landon Dickerson

C- Connor Williams

RG- Issac Seumalo 

RT- Andre Dillard 

Bench:

RB- Chuba Hubbard

RB- Kareem Hunt 

WR- Quinten Johnston

WR- Darius Slayton

TE- Noah Fant 

TE- Robert Tonyan

Swing T- Andrew Wylie 

Swing Interior OL- Matthew Bergeron 

 

Defense:

EDGE/Rush LB- Danielle Hunter

DT- Jalen Carter

DT- BJ Hill

EDGE- Josh Sweat

LB- Shaq Leonard

CB- Darius Slay

CB- Kristin Fulton

CB- Sean Murphy Bunting

FS- Justin Reid

SS- Reed Blankenship

LB/S- Jayron Kearse

Bench:

EDGE/Rush DT-Brandon Graham

EDGE- Jermaine Johnson

NT- Alim McNeill 

LB- Jerome Baker

LB- Quay Walker

LB- Quincy Williams

CB- Troy Hill

CB- Josh Jobe 

[Scoundrel]

Baltimore:

Baltimore Offense:

This Baltimore offense has a ton of weapons and a QB playing up to his potential right now.  We want to see who Raleigh is focused on stopping the most, whether it’s Lamar Jackson’s rushing ability, or Mike Evans or George Kittle as receivers, and then emphasize the elements they are less focused on. If they are super keyed in on stopping Jackson as a runner, we will let him stay in the pocket and throw, which he’s been doing very well so far this season. If they are putting extra coverage on Evans and/or Kittle, we’ll let Lamar play more loose and run. On top of that we have some nice secondary targets in Jahan Dotson, Durham Smythe, and Darnell Mooney. In focusing their defensive attention on some of the star players on this team, they’ll be leaving gaps and that’s what we want to take advantage of.

To start the game, we want to spread the ball around to all of our different playmakers a fair bit to see what the defense is looking. We will start the game slow with lots of RPO looks and quick game action. Alexander Mattison draws the start at RB, but we will be mixing Cordarrelle Patterson in heavily if he plays while also including Jaylen Warren, particularly on 3rd down. While none of these players are bell cow backs, we think that they can be useful and productive players when playing with the rushing threat of Lamar Jackson. We also recognize that Raleigh’s defensive line is fairly stout but we completely trust our offensive line to hold up against them with minimal additional help.

Mike Evans is playing at the top of his game right now and we want to use him as such. We want to use him as a physical route runner at all levels and we think we can have success with him if he’s given single coverage against anyone Raleigh has. If we see man coverage with no help on Evans, he is a quick read. Likewise with George Kittle, we expect to utilize him at all levels of the field where we can hit him on short, intermediate, or deep plays. We similarly don’t believe there is anyone out there who can contain Kittle consistently in single coverage. On top of that we have Jahan Dotson who is really coming into his own. We want to use him as an underneath guy a lot while Evans and Kittle hit the deeper parts of the field. If they draw multiple defenders deep, we like Dotson’s YAC ability where he can take a short throw and gain some yardage with open space around him. Darnell Mooney will be splitting time with Durham Smythe, who will come in for 12 personnel looks, and Cordarrelle Patterson, who will come in for 21 personnel looks as well as to spell Mattison.

 

Baltimore Defense:
Our main concern defensively in this matchup is containing Christian McCaffrey. Russell Wilson has played fine this season so far and he’s got decent weapons, but McCaffrey is the biggest threat on that team by far. Once we limit McCaffrey, we think we can contain Wilson by attacking the OL and keeping him rattled.

We anticipate Raleigh to come out in a 2 TE base formation like they did last week and will be playing with a 3 safety base defense in anticipation of this. If they come out in a 3 WR look, our base defense will have Holland leave the field, with Chinn sliding up to SS, and Awuzie coming off the bench. For our 3 safety defense, we’re going to have Chinn essentially play up as an extra LB in this game to help against the run.

Additionally we will be running a lot of cover 1 robber looks with McKinney and Holland on the backend where either one can play deep or come up into the box on any given play. This gives our defense some unpredictability as well as providing another body up in the box on most plays to help shut down McCaffrey and the run game.

For man coverage responsibilities, Carlton Davis will take Michael Thomas while Byron Murphy will cover Courtland Sutton. Jeremy Chinn will cover McCaffrey out of the backfield and really key in on him as a runner. The robber safety will cover Mark Andrews and the linebackers will trade of coverage responsibilities play to play, with one covering Robert Tonyan and the other playing a middle of the field zone or occasionally blitzing. In 3 WR looks, the 2 CBs will keep their assignments while Awuzie will cover the 3rd receiver. Holland leaves the field and Chinn slides back and takes his role. Now the 2 LBs will exchange coverage responsibilities of the TEs while the robber safety will key in on McCaffrey.

The final key to the game for our defense is the pass rush. The right side of Raleigh’s line has not played well at all so far this year and so we specifically want to crash that side. We can get plenty of pressure from the outside or the interior so we want to just focus on collapsing Russell Wilson’s pocket when he’s passing so that we can keep him from getting comfortable.

 

 

Raleigh:

OFFENSIVE GAME PLAN

After our resounding victory in week 2, the Raleigh Firebirds and brimming with confidence. Russell Wilson remains the starter and our main goal on offense will be to keep Baltimore in base but then spread them out of base by using the versatility of Mark Andrews and Christian McCaffrey in the pass game. 

We will have a base of 11 personnel with Sutton and revelation speed demon Tutu Atwell on the outside, while moving Michael Thomas in the slot. We want to attack the middle of the field against Baltimore’s 2nd LB and safety disguised as a Nickel CB, Jeremy Chinn. The plan will be to line up Mark Andrews and Michael Thomas on the same side of the field as much as possible and we think we can get favorable matchups with one of those guys, as well as McCaffrey out of the backfield. Another matchup we like is Courtland Sutton on the outside vs Baltimore’s smaller CB’s. We think we can take some shots with him and have him win a few 50/50 balls.

We can also take our base offense and spread out in a 5 wide look with Andrews, and McCaffrey as WR’s and really spread out Baltimore to get some of those LB’s working in space.

2 RB formation

We also want to play a little bit more 2 RB formation this week with either Chuba Hubbard or Kareem Hunt on the field with McCaffrey.In that case we take off one of the WR’s depending on the matchup. I don’t anticipate giving either player many carries, but using them in pass protection and to chip defenders to give Andre Dillard a little bit more help in protection. This formation will also allow us to spread McCaffrey as a WR while still having a player back in pass pro.

In the running game we think with our offensive line that we can get plenty of push for McCaffrey, while good pass rushers, Burns and Hargrave can get moved in the run game and we think that we can counter that aggressiveness and get McCaffrey some big runs to open up our offense

2TE Set

Bringing in a 2nd TE instead of the RB can also help open up the run game and attack those same match ups. Tonyan or even Andrew Wylie as a T eligible can serve this function. We also like giving Fant a few snaps to stretch the middle of the field with 2 receiving TE’s.
 

 

DEFENSIVE GAME PLAN

4-1-5 with using Jayron Kearse as a LB/S. Sweat and Hunter will rush to contain Lamar from getting to the outside and want to force scrambles and runs to the inside where we think we have a decisive advantage with Carter and Hill over Baltimore’s guards. Shaq Leonard will mostly play as a spy for Lamar.

In coverage, we mostly plan to play more single high and a combination of Man and Cover 4. One safety will come down to cover the intermediate area or cheat over to help a little bit with coverage on Dotson. And the 3rd safety will be lined up as a LB to help stop read option plays and cover the TE. We like the versatility of our 3 safeties and think that any of them can function deep, in the box or in the middle of the field.

Slay will shadow Mike Evans, whichever safety is in the box (mostly Jayron Kearse) will take Kittle, SMB will take Dotson and Fulton will cover Mooney. 

Mattison does not scare us at all in the run game, we think with the extra players in coverage and containing Lamar that will force Baltimore to try and move the ball through Mattison and move the ball slowly, which we think puts the game in Raleigh’s favor.

Front formations and rush plans:

5 Man front

Early down or short yardage. Either Fulton on SMB comes off and Alim McNeil comes on to play nose while keeping Hill and Carter on the field. Hunter becomes more of an off ball rush LB.This can free him up to rush at times up the middle behind the 3 DT’s. A more pass rushing wrinkle could be swapping Hill with Brandon Graham as well to allow Graham to rush over a guard.

Nascar Package

On obvious pass downs, subbing out Hill with Brandon Graham and rushing one of Graham or occasionally Sweat from the inside against the guards.

3 DE Package

In high leverage rush situations and maybe some early down situations, Jermaine Johnson comes on the field with either Fulton or Blankenship coming off. Johnson takes over as the DE across from Sweat, freeing up Danielle Hunter, my best Edge rusher to hover and play LB and blitz from the interior behind Carter and Hill. 
 

Iknow who won this game regardless of outcome

[EaglesPeteC]

Baltimore will need 12 defenders to cover me. 
 

 

 

That’s how this works right? 😎

[EaglesPeteC]

Carlton Davis out 

[SirA1]

Raleigh does enough to get the win at Home.

Raleigh 14 - Baltimore 10

[Blue]

I really like Raleigh's gameplan here and I don't believe in Baltimore's offensvie line to hold up without help against Raleigh's d-line. Not a clean game by the Raleigh offense but enough to get it done, imo.

[TedLavie]

Went with a Baltimore upset. I like their OL honestly and I think they can hold on against a good but light on depth Raleigh DL. I can see Mattison having a decent day against a super light front and Lamar is gonna make things happen if he gets time in the pocket. On the other side, I would have taken Raleigh in a heartbeat if they came out with a run-heavy plan but they chose not to do so. I like their weapons honestly against an underwhelming secondary, but I think Baltimore DL can make some plays and of course we know Russ isn't great. 

Baltimore 24-21

[Scoundrel]

Raleigh is consistent QB play, a RT and a player or two in their corner group away from being a really dangerous team. They will get more out of Johnston going forward as he takes over for Mike Williams as well. I like their plan and feel they can overmatch this Baltimore team.

[Whicker]

Don’t think Baltimore’s running game is good enough here to beat Raleigh on the road. Don’t think Lamar can pass his way out of it. 

[MD4L]

Best game of the week so far.

I like the Baltimore offensive game plan. Raleigh’s defense is stout however so I think they can make life hard on the Baltimore run game. Still, Mike Evans has gone off thus far this year and I like the Lamar to Kittle connection.

On the other hand, I like the Raleigh game plan. Their running game should have success and McCaffery is a tough matchup despite Baltimore having resources to slow him down.

Really a close game that sees both teams trade scores and the lead. I think the biggest factor that sways my vote is the edge rush of Raleigh against Lamar Jackson’s dual threat ability. I think they could get after him a couple times and also note the fumbling issues between Jackson and Mattison. Consider that the difference maker in an entertaining game

31-27 Raleigh

[RuskieTitan]

I think Baltimore comes in on the road and executes successfully on offense, and as the score rises, Raleigh can't keep up.