BDL 2017 BizzBowl: Rome Eternals vs Seoul Dragons

[Whicker]

BDL 2017 BizzBowl

Vote for who you think would win the game.

Rules:
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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]

Rome Eternals

QB Drew Brees

RB Todd Gurley

RB Theo Riddick

WR JuJu Smith Schuster

WR Amari Cooper

TE Austin Sefarian Jenkins

LT Charles Leno Jr

LG Stefen Wisniewski

C Brandon Linder

RG Marcus Gilbert

RT Ryan Ramczyk

 

WR Michae Crabtree

RB Marlon Mack

OL  Justin Britt

FB Tommy Bohannon

WR Ted Ginn Jr

OL Max Garcia

TE Marcedes Lewis

OG Ramon Foster

 

DL Vinny  Curry

DI Dalvin Tomlinson

DL  Michael Brockers

DL Carlos Dunlap

LB CJ Mosley

LB Wesley Woodyard

CB William Jackson

CB Prince Amukamara

Kelce cover-Marlon Humphrey

S  Jahleel Addae

S Pat Chung

 

S Josh Jones

Edge Takk McKinley

Edge James Harrison

DI Malcolm Brown

DL Matt Ioannidis

CB  Nickel Robley Coleman

LB Patrick Onwuasor

CB Nevin Lawson

 

Seoul Dragons

QB Matt Ryan

RB Kenyan Drake

RB Wayne Gallman

WR AJ Green

WR TY Hilton

TE Travis Kelce

LT Ronnie Stanley

LG Kevin Zeitler

C Alex Mack (Q)

RG Rodger Saffold

RT Ryan Schraeder

 

Bench RB Kenyan Drake

Bench RB Isaiah Crowell

Bench WR Chris Hogan (Q)

Bench WR Tyrell Williams

Bench FB Patrick DiMarco

Bench TE Jason Witten

Bench OL Matt Paradis

Bench OL Laurent Duvernay-Tardiff

 

RE Melvin Ingram

DT Gerald McCoy

DT Geno Atkins

LE Anthony Zettel (Q)

SLB Nigel Bradham

MLB Demario Davis

CB Aqib Talib

CB Darius Slay

CB Kendall Fuller

CB EJ Gaines

FS Marcus Williams

 

 

Bench Edge Derek Barnett

Bench Edge Jason Pierre-Paul (Q)

Bench Edge/Int Denico Autry

Bench Int Shelby Harris

Bench LB Devon Kennard

Bench CB Robert Alford

Bench S Barry Church

Bench S Mike Adams

 

[Whicker]

Rome Eternals

Offense

This week, we look to run a more run heavy attack against a stout Seoul defense.  We will list the aforementioned lineup as our starters but we will be rotating in players constantly throughout the game to give the Jazz  tons of different looks and personal groups to have to scheme for,  We will have two TE, traditional i formations, three TEs, and four  wide sets.  Brees is the master of finding the mismatches on the defensive side and exploiting it.  We feel we have provided him with a bevy of offensive weapons with different skill sets to make his life easier.  If Brees happens to find a personal group he can take advantage of, expect a hurry up offense to trap that personnel on the field.

We open this week in a more traidional look as after a few weeks of the air raid offense, we feel Seoul will be geared up to stop the pass in a nickel or dime defense,  We are gonna feed Gurley a ridiculous amount of times today.  Expect him to get between 25-30 carries with another 5 targets in the passing game.  We feel our right side with two excellent tackles can help us on some sweeps and pitches to get away from the interior defenders of the defense, Our left side also provides lineman playing in top form and we feel we can run on that side as well.  Whichever side Bradham lines up on will especially be our target as he is simply one of the worst run stopping LB in the league,   We also will run a handful of screen passes to Riddick as an extension of our running game with our atletic tackles leading the way

One thing we are going to incorporate this week is swing passes and WR screens often with Riddick going into motion to serve as a lead blocker.  Seoul loves to play off man coverage which leaves them vulnerable to the bubble screen pass,  Thus we have inserted our two best players with the ball in their hands as our starting wide outs for this game.  Once Brees sees the safeties movng up  to cover the run game and the corners moving up to guard the screens we are going to max protect and hit some play action streaks targeting Talib who doesn’t have the speed at his age to keep up with Cooper or JuJu deep  

We wll mix in some three and four wide with Crabtree coming on to fight Talib, literally and Coleman on the other side.  This moves both Cooper and JuJu to the slot where we like their matchups

Up front Seoul contains two excellent inside defenders so we will be using three people to block them ad naseum.  ASJ will chip on Leno’s side and we will leave Ramcyk one on one against the other edge as he has performed at an All Pro level his rookie season.  We expect this game to be close and we will lean on Brees to have a lot of influence with play calls and audibles at the line of scrimmage to lead us to the late score to win the game

 

TL?DR     

Lean on our two MVP candidates.  Run heavy, hit some deep shots on play action,  Brees runs the offense

 

Defense

 

Bizzbowl week and our defense is ready to go.  We go against an offense with solid playmakers and a streaky QB.  We plan on forcing Seoul away from what they normaly like to do,  If you can get Matt Ryan to have to go to his third or fourth read, he really starts  panic and struggle as has been evidenced in real life this season.

So the question comes, how do you force him to do that.  Well we are going to double team both of his favorite targets on this team.  AJ Green gets doubled up by both Prince Amukamara and Pat Chung on one side.  On the interior we bring in rookie Marlon Humphrey to line up and cover Travis Kelce with help from an in the box Jahleel Addae,  

Yep, we are playing cover zero this week because we feel that William Jackson can shut down TY Hilton on the other side. Jackson has performed as well as any cornerback this season. When targeted this year, he's allowed a passer rating of 37.8, second lowest of all cornerbacks with at least 150 coverage snaps, trailing only A.J. Bouye.  On average, Jackson is targeted once every 8.5 (13th least targeted per snap) coverage snaps he's on the field, and allows a reception once every 23.3 (second best) snaps for 0.43 (second least) yards per snap.  And just this season, Jackson mainly covered Hilton in the Bengals-Colts game where Hilton had just two catches for 15 yards, only one of which came against Jackson who has also shut down Antonio Brown twice this year.

So now that we have the three main cogs of the Seoul offense on lockdown, we can concentrate the rest of our players on the running game.  Up front, Seoul may have the best interior blocking unit in the league but we have two big meat man run stuffers with Tomlinson and Brockers.  The Seoul tackles are just average this year and we feel we can get some pressure on the outside from Dunlap and Curry.  MOsely and Woodyard are excellent run stuffers.  Mosely has running back duties and will play a middle zone taking away slants if the RB stays in or can blitz at his discretion.  Woodyard goes old man ball with Jason Witten.  Double teaming Kelce allows for an extra man in the box to help against the run.

Robley Coleman gets a third WR whoever that may be.  In long down and distance we brink in Takk and Harrison (who knows how to produce in big games) as well as shifting Dunlap inside with pass rusher Malcolm Brown.  We will rotate players as needed to keep everyone fresh

In the end we are going to force Matt Ryan to beat us with lesser options and we will accept anything that comes from that

TL/DR-  Take away Green and Kelce.  Force Ryan to go through his reads, no running attack

 

 

Seoul Dragons

Offense

 

It’s Bizz Bowl time and, while he might have struggled in recent weeks, we’re gonna put our faith in Matty Ice and air it out this week. Ryan has been here before, and won us the trophy last year, we expect he can do the same this year.

The first point we want to emphasize this week is the lack of depth of Rome pass defenders in the front 7. Rome has next to nothing behind Curry and Dunlap at edge and besides Mosley, Rome has no decent cover LB. We are going to take advantage of that in two ways. First, we are going to run a no-huddle, up tempo offense so that we can tire out Rome front 7. Second, we are going to multiply 2 TE and 2 RB sets along with Green/Hilton/Kelce to target those weak linebackers.

Drake gets the start at RB given that he’s a much better receiver out of the backfield than Ajayi. Wayne Gallman, who is developing into a decent pass-catching RB for the Giants, will see a lot more snaps than usual out of those 2RB sets, almost exclusively as a pass catcher. Except for special situations that will be detailed below, Kenyan Drake will handle most of the carries in the no huddle offense.

The second advantage we have is our OL vs Rome DL in the passing game. Rome interior defenders are all nice run stiffers but they are fairly inoffensive in terms of pass rush. We will therefore be able to slide protection to Dunlap side or use Alex Mack (Matt Paradis if he can’t go), as a blitz pickup option to give Matt Ryan a clean pocket. Dunlap and Curry are good but we expect them to be tired soon against our offense and we don’t think they’re good enough to consistently beat our tackles.

A clean pocket should give Matt Ryan plenty of opportunities to move the chains consistently. Rome secondary is good but they will be battle tested this week. AJ Green will likely face William Jackson if he plays this week. Jackson is having a very solid season but if he is matched up 1vs1 against AJ Green, Green will see a lot of targets as we don’t think he can be stopped without a double team. TY Hilton will run deep routes or catch and run routes (slants, pick plays, bubble screens etc.). His speed should be too much to handle for Amukamara. If he’s covered by Jackson, we will test the young corner since he’s questionable and might be limited, but if he’s in form, we will likely avoid throwing at TY most of the time. As for Kelce, he will mostly run short to intermediate routes as we don’t expect to beat Chung deep. But Kelce will be important to move the chains and will be targeted a lot on 3^rd downs. If it’s Mosley vs Kelce, we will attack Mosley relentlessly.

However, despite our formidable trio, we think our best matchups are with our RBs and secondary TE. Assuming Addae plays deep safety, Drake, Gallman and Witten will likely be covered by Mosley (who is above average in coverage) and Woodyard (who is not). If Mosley is on Kelce assignments, Woodyard and either Onwuasor or Milano will have to cover those guys. That’s juicy for us. We will put Drake and Gallman in situations where they can use their speed to get separation from Woodyard/3^rd LB and get huge run and catch opportunities (wheel, seam or shoot routes). Witten will be more used as safety valve for short gains.

We will have at least one player running a specific zone route at any times in case Rome choses a zone scheme. With our protection though, we think we could easily beat any zone scheme Rome throws at us.

Chris Hogan, if he plays, will be our slot WR and will be more involved if Rome goes zone heavy in this game. If he doesn’t, Tyrell Williams starts outside in 3WR sets but he will not see the field more than 20% of the snaps 

As for the running game, we will involve it a lot more at the end of each half against a tired defensive front. Middle of 2^nd quarter and during the 4^th we will try to run long extended drives with a lot of running plays. In those drives, Jay Ajayi will carry the load with Crowell giving him a breather. Crowell will be our back in goal line and 3^rd and short situations.

 

*For those who would like to point out that chemistry between a center and QB is important, I’d like to point out that Paradis started at center most of last year (including in the PO) with Ryan under center and will a full week of practice plus that history from last year, it shouldn’t be an issue.

 

Defense

 

Rome presents a big challenge as they have one of the best RBs in the game in Gurley and an elite QB in Brees. However, the rest of their weapons is pretty pedestrian as none except Juju eclipsed 70 yards receiving since Week 11. Therefore, our goals will be to shut down Gurley and put Brees in uncomfortable situations to win this game.

We expect Rome to start 4 WRs, therefore we will have Church on the bench and a 4^th corner on the field. Obviously, if Rome starts Lewis at TE or Bohanon at FB or a 2^nd RB, Church comes in for Gaines at SS. If Rome goes on 2TE sets with Niklas or on 2RB 1 TE sets, Kennard comes in for Fuller.

As always, we will play off man coverage since we have the quality to do it, outside and inside. Slay will get Juju if he plays outside, or he will get Coleman. Talib gets Crabtree. Last year he held him to 74 yards in 2 games and we expect him to limit him greatly again in this game. Fuller gets Juju if he plays inside, otherwise he gets whoever plays in the slot for Rome. EJ Gaines, or Alford if out, gets Cooper, who is slumping big time. If one of them is on the field, Riddick/Lewis/RB2/TE will be guarded by Bradham. If Rome plays in heavy sets, Kennard covers the TE.

We expect all of our guys to win their matchups so it will give us some flexibility with Marcus Williams and Nigel Bradham. They will be our Factor X and their assignments will keep changing so Brees can’t really figure out what they will do on any given snaps. They can play in box or not and will blitz/compensate a blitzer/drop back in deep coverage (mainly on Juju side of the field, and mostly for Williams not Bradham)/play zone underneath/help on Gurley.

One of them will always be helping Davis on Gurley because he’s the main guy on that offense. In coverage he will be constantly double-teamed with Davis and Bradham/Church/Williams. He will even be triple teamed sometimes. Having two resources locked on Gurley will also help in the running game. Gurley is obviously a solid runner but he will face 6 men in the box, sometimes 7, all solid run defenders, with only 5 OL and no inline blockers so that should limit him quite a bit.

We will blitz on around 15% of the snaps with one of our LBers/safeties inside or a slot corner. Brees will already be uncomfortable enough with Atkins and McCoy in front of him vs a tackle playing guard and a LG that’s not really good, but with an additional blitzer inside, we could hit Brees often.

Ingram is listed at RE and Bradham will often play behind him which will allow him to be a bit more aggressive in pass rushing vs Leno Jr., who he can beat. The other end will focus on gap control and run defense since he won’t have a LB behind him and will face the solid Ryan Ramczyk.

Also, we will switch to zone coverage on around 15% percent of the snaps, where we will use mainly cover 3 schemes to keep defenders in the box to stop the running game.

 

[Scoundrel]

So for this game am I supposed to ignore Todd Gurley not playing since he is healthy?

[bcb1213]

3 minutes ago, Counselor said:

So for this game am I supposed to ignore Todd Gurley not playing since he is healthy?

Correct.  Same with kelce 

[TedLavie]

ASF out for Rome, Hogan out for Seoul. I don't think there were any injury related inactives aside from those two

[Jlash]

What a good matchup.

Rome's strength on the defensive line is shutting down the run, and Seoul has a very good OL, so Matt Ryan should have stretches of time where he's standing clean as a whistle in the pocket and can make Rome pay dearly for the cover 0 look they're playing.

Problem is, Seoul noted that if William Jackson covers Hilton they'll avoid Hilton, taking away their greatest cover 0 buster right off the bat. 

I think the key here is Gurley. He's been absolutely matchup proof most of this year and he's proven he can carry a team all by himself. Add that into an offense sporting Drew Brees and some decent weapons around him? I think Rome wins this in a  pretty close game.

[SirA1]

Rome 31-21. Gurley for MVP.

[Xmad]

As much as it pains me after losing to him 3 times this year....I'm going with Ted's team.

Rome's offense makes it hard to vote against them especially with MVP Gurley back there but I think Seoul's o-line and running game does well enough to pull it out.

[DingoLadd]

I went rome since I trust Brees and Gurley to make more plays than Matt Ryan and friends. This is a very close game but when it comes down to it I trust Rome's defense and offense more to come up in key situations.

[Hockey5djh]

Rome

Offense goes run heavy....predicatable. I can't fault them because they may have the MVP runner up in Gurley but you also have to point out that their weapons on the outside suck by BDL standards. Dud: Bradham isn't the worst LB in the league at covering the run....at all.

Defense goes super risky with the cover 0. Allows them to double AJ, put a corner on Kelce, and put their best corner on Hilton. If the Seoul go vertical with it this thing might be over quickly.

Seoul

Offense airs it out...but doesn't spread the defense. Secondary weapons are targeted but against a crowded box I don't think they get too far. Not targeting Hilton is a huge mistake in this situation IMO.

Defense expected 4 wide from a team with questionable WR depth. The off coverage plays into the screen game of Rome. Seoul having a box of 6, sometimes 7 seems fairly light, especially considering the WRs.

 

I think there were some minor mistakes made on both sides. I think the combo of Brees and Gurley wasn't shut down as well as Green/Kelce/Hilton. Rome takes a close one, Gurley gets the MVP of the Bizzbowl.

 

[Jlash]

1 hour ago, Hockey5djh said:

Offense goes run heavy....predicatable

Well, not predictable at all since his opponent was expecting him to air it out.

[TedLavie]

12 minutes ago, Jlash said:

Well, not predictable at all since his opponent was expecting him to air it out.

I was not. I expected Rome to run a lot out of multiple sets but I thought they would start a spread out set.

1 hour ago, Hockey5djh said:

Rome

Offense goes run heavy....predicatable. I can't fault them because they may have the MVP runner up in Gurley but you also have to point out that their weapons on the outside suck by BDL standards. Dud: Bradham isn't the worst LB in the league at covering the run....at all.

Defense goes super risky with the cover 0. Allows them to double AJ, put a corner on Kelce, and put their best corner on Hilton. If the Seoul go vertical with it this thing might be over quickly.

Seoul

Offense airs it out...but doesn't spread the defense. Secondary weapons are targeted but against a crowded box I don't think they get too far. Not targeting Hilton is a huge mistake in this situation IMO.

Defense expected 4 wide from a team with questionable WR depth. The off coverage plays into the screen game of Rome. Seoul having a box of 6, sometimes 7 seems fairly light, especially considering the WRs.

 

I think there were some minor mistakes made on both sides. I think the combo of Brees and Gurley wasn't shut down as well as Green/Kelce/Hilton. Rome takes a close one, Gurley gets the MVP of the Bizzbowl.

 

I will repeat myself from the Louisiana game but, if Rome adds TEs and RBs into the game, I would not run 4CB sets, it's pretty obvious. I even wrote it in my gameplan so that I wouldn't hear this nonsense again. 6 in the box is for 4WR sets. For 2 WR sets, I have 4 DL and 3 LB in the game so that's at least 7, sometimes 8-9 (I didn't say where Church would play when he comes in so that's on me)

[Hockey5djh]

 

4 hours ago, TedLavie said:

I will repeat myself from the Louisiana game but, if Rome adds TEs and RBs into the game, I would not run 4CB sets, it's pretty obvious. I even wrote it in my gameplan so that I wouldn't hear this nonsense again. 6 in the box is for 4WR sets. For 2 WR sets, I have 4 DL and 3 LB in the game so that's at least 7, sometimes 8-9 (I didn't say where Church would play when he comes in so that's on me)

If that's what you meant to do its not what you wrote.

On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2017 at 3:44 PM, Whicker said:

One of them will always be helping Davis on Gurley because he’s the main guy on that offense. In coverage he will be constantly double-teamed with Davis and Bradham/Church/Williams. He will even be triple teamed sometimes. Having two resources locked on Gurley will also help in the running game. Gurley is obviously a solid runner but he will face 6 men in the box, sometimes 7, all solid run defenders, with only 5 OL and no inline blockers so that should limit him quite a bit.

[TedLavie]

1 hour ago, Hockey5djh said:

If that's what you meant to do its not what you wrote.

yeah in base formation, which had 5 DBs into it. 

I wrote this so specifally address heavy sets by Rome

Quote

Obviously, if Rome starts Lewis at TE or Bohanon at FB or a 2^nd RB, Church comes in for Gaines at SS. If Rome goes on 2TE sets with Niklas or on 2RB 1 TE sets, Kennard comes in for Fuller.