BDL 2024 Week 4: Svalbard Miners @ Quebec Nordiques

[RedGold]

BDL 2024 Week  4

Match: Svalbard Miners @ Quebec Nordiques

Away Owner:    @SirA1

Home Owner:   @TedLavie @vikes635 

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]

Svalbard Miners
QB: Dak Prescott
RB1: James Cook 
WR1: Chris Godwin
WR2: Jalen Nailor
TE1: Colby Parkinson 
TE2: Sam LaPorta (Q)
LT: Orlando Brown Jr.
LG: Tyler Smith
OC: Lucas Patrick
RG: Will Fries 
RT:  Colton McKivitz
--------------------
RB2: Kyren Williams
RB3: Ray Davis
TE3: Dalton Schultz
WR3: Luke McCaffrey
WR4/RB4: KaVontae Turpin 
WR5: Gabe Davis (Q)
OL6: David Edwards
OL7: Aaron Brewer

4i: Cameron Heyward 
NT: Davon Godchaux 
4i: Zach Allen  

LB:  Jonathan Greenard 
ILB: Blake Cashman 
ILB: Kaden Ellis 
LB: Zaven Collins 

CB: Jaylon Johnson
CB: Charvarius Ward 
S: Jabrill Peppers
S: DeShon Elliott
--------------------
STAR: Brian Branch (Q)
MONEY: Quentin Lake
S3: Kam Curl
LB3: Zack Baun 
Edge/PRS: Will McDonald IV
DL4: Keeanu Benton 
DL5: John Franklin-Meyers 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Quebec

QB Kirk Cousins
RB Chuba Hubbard
WR Nico Collins
WR Rashid Shaheed
TE Tyler Conklin
TE Kyle Pitts
LT Dion Dawkins
LG Zach Tom
C Lloyd Cushenberry
RG Quinn Meinerz
RT Brian O’Neill

Bench

RB Devin Singletary
RB Khalil Herbert
WR Tyler Boyd
WR Jordan Whittington
OL Nick Allegretti
OL Garrett Bolles

 

OLB Josh Hines-Allen
DT Osa Odighizuwa
NT A’Shawn Robinson
DT Harrison Phillips
OLB Montez Sweat
LB Jerome Baker (Q)
LB Lavonte David
CB L’Jarius Sneed (Q)
CB Asante Samuel Jr.
FS Ronnie Hickman Jr.
SS Josh Metellus 

Bench

Edge Charles Harris
INT DaQuan Jones
INT Tyler Davis
LB Troy Andersen
LB Nakobe Dean
CB Dee Alford
CB Benjamin St Juste
S Malik Hooker

Edited Sunday at 05:21 PM by RedGold

[RedGold]

Svalbard Miners

Motivation: We head south this week to balmy Quebec. We look to greet our former QB Cousins with lots of pressure and misdirection today in this Prime Time game. The Nordiques are a wounded animal which makes them dangerous but also calls for them to be put down.

Offensive Strategy

Scheme:  Pass (50%) vs Run (50%)
Formations:    2 TE (55%) / 3-4 WR (35%)/ 2 RB (10%) 

Blocking - We are going heavy on the OL to emphasize the run more. McKivitz is in for McGary and Patrick takes over at C leaving Brewer as the backup Center/Guard. Edwards again is the Jumbo OL. Parkinson gets the start at TE as his blocking is superior in what we want to do against Quebec.

Rushing - James Cook as our lead back (20 touches). Kyren Williams is the better pass protector, so gets 3rd down duties. We will have plays with both of them on the field with Williams lined up in the slot. Davis gets a series to keep both fresh.. Turpin will squat down behind the mountain Orlando Brown Jr. to get the -occasional surprise attack pitch inside, running behind Tyler Smith.

Passing -.Pre snap misdirection and Motion with Attitude (50%) to keep them guessing. Dak will look to continue to protect the ball but will take his shots. However with new WR in they fold we will keep things short and run lots of Curls and comebacks. This is the “Soul Glow” offense for sure. 

12 Personnel is the focus with LaPorta as TE2 looks to get yards on quick outs to the flat as the other receivers clear out space. Schultz is their backup.

Chris Godwin and Jalen Nailor will carry the lantern at WR in this offense. They get some crossing routes to scheme open the other receivers underneath. Luke McCaffrey also will come off the bench to keep those chains moving. Gabe Davis will be the 4th WR as we use his size to find high percentage contested catches.

Defensive Strategy

Same defensive philosophy that we have used all season. We expect Quebec to try their short passing and run game and we look to counter that with a variation of our formation that has an extra LB in the box. With the TITE front we are looking to take away the inside zone running lanes and force things outside to our fast chasing LBs and DBs.This is a one-gap aggressive defense. It is designed to attack and disrupt offenses.

Formation: 3-4 TITE / 4-2-5 Big Nickel

DL - Godchaux gets the start as the 0 tech since he is a bigger body to limit runs on early downs. Cam Heyward and Zach Allen shoot their gaps to close those lanes and collapse the pocket around Cousins. In our nickel formation they will move inside in an Even front. Benton and JFM rotate in to keep that inside pressure up all game.

LB - Greenard is providing early dividends for us and knows Cousins tendencies in the pocket. With their run heavy, short yardage offense we counter with another big edge in Zaven Collins who has versatility in coverage as well. Cashman will spy on the RB to limit YAC on anything in his mid-hook area but also continue to pressure as needed. Kaden Ellis starts this week to be in on coverage for their TE. Zach Baun will come off the bench to play the AVG role in this defense and line up in multiple spots. Newly acquired WMD will be eased into the defense this week as a Pass Rush Specialist on about 10-15 snaps.

The Blitz - Simulated Pressure Delayed blitz and stunts are the forte of this aggressive defense (50%). Cousins won’t be able to  read where it will be coming from as our Nickel, LBs and CBs all can rush well. Our LBs can drop into coverage allowing us to get unblocked threats into Kirk’s face.
 

Secondary - Tampa 2 Style Shell

All-Pro CB’s in Jaylon Johnson and Mooney Ward will lock down their sides respectively versus whichever WR they have to defend against, looking to eliminate flat throws. Brian Branch reprises his STAR (Nickel) role and will cover Pitts or the slot WR on underneath routes and prevent any quick crossers in his area. Quentin Lake takes over the MONEY (Dime) role if they go 4 WR.

DeShon Elliott and Jabrill Peppers will be the two high safeties on deep routes over the top. Forcing a lot of underneath throws we will be able to have our guys swarm to their receivers and limit YAC. Kam Curl is the 3rd Safety this week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quebec

This week brings us an old foe in SirA. While the days of Singapore vs Seoul are long gone, we’re still highly motivated to beat the Miners, give them their first loss of the year and show the rest of BDL we’re not dead just yet.

Offense

Slow tempo. Because of injuries we have upfront on defense, and because Svalbard has a very deep front 7, we’re going to slow the game down today. We want to limit the amount of snaps to a minimum and aim for long drives to try to pull off the upset.

Outside running game. Svalbard inside DL is stout and in their Tite defense it’s going to be hard to run inside against them. However we have an opportunity to move the ball outside and we’ll run the ball a lot outside the tackles, with outside sweeps, tosses, and off tackles with some mis direction counters to keep defense off balance on 1st and 2nd downs. Guards and tight ends will be pulled to give us extra blockers and put us in numerical advantage situations. Hubbard will get 60% of the carries, Singletary is our goal line back and will get 25% of the carries, Herbert will get somewhere like 5 touches including some in the passing game.

Quick passing game. We want to move the chains methodically with our running game and our quick passing game. We will target the second level and especially the area covered by the Svalbard LB dropping in coverage (we assume Baun or Collins) with crossing routes, quick outs, slants and curls. Conklin and Pitts will see a lot of targets. Plan will be to me methodical, get 5-to-8-yard gains on high completion throws and find soft spots in the zone defense of Svalbard.

Playaction passes. As always, we will use some playaction passes to create big plays. We will  often try on those plays to overload one side of the field with Hubbard or Conklin in front of the outside CB, Pitts in between the CB and the FS as a decoy and Shaheed or Collins going deep on the FS to create a 1vs1 matchup. We don’t think Collins or Shaheed are a match for Elliott/Peppers so they will need to take steps to prevent our WRs to get open, leaving Pitts with space – and it’s going to be up to Cousins to make the right decision and throw.

Pass protection. We’ve moved Zach Tom at LG until Seumalo gets back on the field. Tom is playing great, and he gives us our 5 best linemen on the field. He has experience at G though it’s not his natural position. If he’s too much in difficulty, we’ll try to shift protection to provide him help, either from Cush or from Dawkins. We trust the rest of our OL to handle their responsibilities 1vs1 as it is possibly our only unit which has stayed healthy and performant through the first 3 weeks.

Defense

Put some beef inside, leave our edge in 1vs1 situation. Svalbard has a few injuries on offense, and we want to take advantage of that. Their tackles are absolutely beatable, and we want to have our edge rushers in 1vs1 situations. So we will play in base formations with 3 interior DL whose responsibilities on most downs are going to be mainly run D. Osa will be a bit more aggressive on passing downs. 

Thanks to our offensive plan, we expect our defense to be able to stay fresh all game long and we don’t have a lot of rotations planned. Harris and Davis job will be to come in to give our guys a breather but that’s it. DaQuan Jones will have a similar role but will also come In for passing downs.

Man coverage. We will play mostly cover 1 man and will switch to cover 2 man in 3rd and longs with a DL leaving the field. Our coverage responsibilities will be as such:

Sneed – Godwin
Samuel – whoever is WR #2 for Svalbard this week
Hickman – deep zone
Metellus (David if Baker is out) – LaPorta
David (Andersen if Baker out) - Schultz or Parkinson
Baker (Metellus if out) – Kyren/Cook

In cover 2, Metellus takes the LB spot opposite of David and Hooker gets on the field for Robinson. 

Edited Sunday at 05:21 PM by RedGold

[SirA1]

With Brian Branch Inactive with a surprise illness. Quentin Lake steps back into the Star role he's had m9st 9f the season and Curl also covers Money. 

[Malfatron]

This one was really hard to pick, and i wont go tie again, but i think miners have a little more juice so i say 27-24 miners in ot

[Blue]

A surprisingly tight defensive game as I think both teams are better defensively and planned well for each other. I am not a fan of Svalbard's reliance on Jalen Nailor and Luke McCaffrey here on 35% of snaps, nor do I think much of Lucas Patrick or Colton McKivitz, and that pushes me towards a surprising Quebecois upset.

[Ragnarok]

3 hours ago, Blue said:

A surprisingly tight defensive game as I think both teams are better defensively and planned well for each other. I am not a fan of Svalbard's reliance on Jalen Nailor and Luke McCaffrey here on 35% of snaps, nor do I think much of Lucas Patrick or Colton McKivitz, and that pushes me towards a surprising Quebecois upset.

This is where I landed as well.  Both teams gameplanned very well, but Svalbard is dinged up just enough to where I think Quebec gets this home win.

This came down partially to trusting Quebec's OL a fair amount more than Svalbard.

[InjuredReserve]

2 hours ago, Ragnarok said:

This is where I landed as well.  Both teams gameplanned very well, but Svalbard is dinged up just enough to where I think Quebec gets this home win.

This came down partially to trusting Quebec's OL a fair amount more than Svalbard.

I fall into a similar spot with Rags. I have logged some Quebec votes this yr in tough matchups on OL being the edge.

I came into this matchup assuming I was going Svalbard. But some key injuries for the Miners are def impacting this matchup. For me the biggest gameplan factor is that Ted did an excellent job outlining his pass rushing edge against the Svalbard OTs this week and I think it gets him a win in this close game.

[MikeT14]

Man this is a great one. I am going with Svalbard in a very slight edge here and honestly because it comes down to I trust Kirk less than I trust Dak at this moment. Kirk with the late turnover swings it. 

[TL-TwoWinsAway]

The showdown of the week for me so far. Two tight teams that appear to be evenly matched with strong gameplans to support them. After two back-to-back 100 yard games from Chuba, and with Nico's rise to stardom, it's hard for me to not take Quebec in an edge-of-your-seat thriller, 28-27.

[InjuredReserve]

Tie Game - this is getting exciting

[RuskieTitan]

I think the defenses will win more often on both sides of the field, but Quebec is able to do a little more effective and with more chances win the game.

[MD4L]

I like both defenses quite a bit. This is the hardest vote of the week thus far. I think some of Svalbard’s injuries play a big role this week, particularly at WR and OL.

I also think Chubba’s big time impact is replicable enough here.

Defense controls althrougout but I think a 10-6 game sees both teams score TDs in the 4th. I’ll take the home team by the smallest of margins.

[SirA1]

GG @TedLavie

[TedLavie]

1 hour ago, SirA1 said:

GG @TedLavie

Thanks, GG to you too