Before we do the preview, a little bit of news:
Dave Steckel, the Linebackers Coach, resigned out of nowhere yesterday. Hopefully, it’s not like a health thing or something weird like that. The linebackers haven’t like been crazy good or anything like that, so I doubt it was a performance thing. Let’s just say that’s not optimal for the linebackers group to have an in-season coaching change. The new guy is Chris Claiborne.
Claiborne had an 8-year career in the NFL from 1999-2007 and is coming off of being Arizona State’s Linebackers coach. So if you have to fill in a coaching spot mid-season, getting a guy who has experience for that exact same job is a good move.
Week 3:
STL Battlehawks (2-0) @ DC Defenders (2-0)
Sunday 3/5 @ 12 pm Central
Battlehawks 3rd road game in a row. San Antonio to Washington to DC. That’s a LOT of travel. Luckily they had the mini-bye week because the last game was on a Thursday, so that might help alleviate some of the stress there, but it is still really hard to win 3 road games in a row.
Battlehawks’ Offense v. Defenders’ Defense
Gregg Williams is the Defenders’ Defensive Coordinator. 2 things about that:
Gregg is a dumb way to spell Greg
He nicknamed himself Dr. Heat, so I'm only going to refer to him as Dr. Heat for the rest of this. You know, out of respect or something.
Dr. Heat runs a very very aggressive defense on multiple levels. On one level, he runs press and man coverage a LOT and on another level, he was the mastermind behind Bountygate. Let’s not forget that Dr. Heat’s whole “Bountygate” thing gave us one of the most uncomfortable and inaccurate physical portrayals of another human being when Kevin James got to play Sean Payton in the movie Home Team.
He is a risk taker. When you play cover 0 (no safeties to cover deep), cover 1 (1 safety to cover deep), and mix in press coverage (defensive backs lining up in the receiver’s faces), you’re opening yourself up to big plays. Then you mix in the blitzes that the Good Doctor uses and you have open spots in the middle of the field. His defenses can be exposed.
I’m going to bring up DC’s week 1 game, but take it with a grain of salt because as we saw with the Battlehawks, week 1 performances were bad for a lot of teams and not a perfect picture of anyone.
SO:
In week 1, DC played Seattle and allowed Seattle to use Jahcour Pearson and Josh Gordon in ways that the Battlehawks did not allow them to. DC allowed those 2 guys to get 169 yards. This Defense was able to flush Ben DiNucci out of the pocket (the same way the Battlehawks did) and he was able to pick apart the defense because the linebackers were pressuring and DBs had to hold onto their coverage for a long, which is hard to do.
DC’s Week 2 game against Vegas was a little different. While the second half of this game was played in a monsoon, it didn’t really affect Vegas’ offense TOO much. They’re just not a good team. The final score of that game was 18-6 and the 6 points Vegas got was when they scored after a turnover on the 2-yard line then they were sacked on the 2-point conversion. Mr. Heat Ph.D. really affected the game by throwing all kinds of pressures and blitzes at the quarterback. Yeah, it worked, but Vegas had chances and shots downfield, unfortunately for them, the ball was off-target, contested, or dropped. Hell, Vegas only ran 46 plays and DC blitzed on AT LEAST 10 of those. My point is that McCarron will have opportunities to throw high-percentage passes and get big plays.
For the Battlehawks, this comes down to the receivers and the line. Duh.
We saw that the receivers can and will win their routes. We saw that the big guys can play big guy ball and McCarron is more than willing to throw balls that only the big guys can get to. That’s great because DC’s defensive backs are going to be put on islands in coverage and they aren’t the biggest guys. Professor Heat loves hiding his showing pressure pre-snap too. He’ll bring a safety up, then immediately have him drop into coverage. I think AJ is cerebral enough and has enough experience to diagnose pre-snap looks and make it work for him. I think he’ll be able to use the isolation that DC forces on their DBs to his advantage. The key is that these receivers need to chill out with the concentration drops and run smart routes. The out routes will be there for Marcell Ateman, the seams will be there for Hakeem Butler, and Austin Proehl will continue to find out some way to get his hands on the ball with guys who are 5 inches taller and 40 pounds heavier than him draped all over him.
ALL OF THIS IS CONTINGENT ON THE LINE. Last week we saw the offensive line take a big metaphorical step forward, which was something that was both expected because they’ve had more reps playing with each other, and impossible not to do, because they couldn’t possibly play worse than how they did in week 1. We saw the interior guys play cohesively. They were able to move the D Tackles and give McCarron a safe spot to step up in the pocket. He has to step up because the Hyphens (the LT and RT who both have hyphenated last names) are playing phenomenally badly. They’re getting their hands and bodies thrown in every direction on the majority of plays and letting the edge rushers get way way way way too much pressure, and a lot of that pressure is causing rushed passes, scrambles, sacks, strip sacks, and stress ulcers. With all the pressures that DC uses, these guys are going to get tested early and often, so cross your fingers that the practice they got on the mini-bye week was efficient and effective.
I don’t really want to focus a whole lot on the running game because we haven’t seen a whole lot of it. Brian Hill is the starter and he was dinged up in week 1 and didn’t play in week 2 so we don’t know what he looks like healthy. Also in the Hybrid West Coast offense the Battlehawks use, the running game gets used effectively when the passing game gets established and we haven’t seen that yet.
Battlehawks’ Defense v. Defenders' Offense
To emphasize how much DC likes to run, you only need numbers.
183 yards passing. 313 yards rushing.
SHEESH.
They have two QBs: Jordan Ta’amu and D’Eriq King. What they have done in the first two games is have Ta’amu play the first 3 quarters and a drive or two in the fourth quarter and then have King take over from there.
2023 Ta’amu is not the electric playmaker with his arm and his legs that you remember him to be from 2020 if that’s how you remember him. In week 1 he was 8/19, 86 yards, and an interception. In week 2 he was 11/23, and 93 yards. That’s 19/42. Now, not all of those incompletions were his fault, but golly dude, a whole lot of them were. In the first half, when it wasn’t raining, I counted 8 passes that were uncatchable and 4 of them were overthrows. If the Battlehawks’ DBs play with discipline, there are definitely going to be chances for turnovers from Ta’amu. He also had a bad week 2, ball security-wise. As I said before, he got strip-sacked and Vegas got the ball on the 2-yard line, and then he got strip-sacked again right before the end of the 1st half which gave Vegas an opportunity for a field goal, which they missed.
It’s going to be very important for the defensive line to get the same kind of pressure that Vegas got on Ta’amu early in the game. It’s going to be a little easier for them to do that because DC has a very banged-up offensive line already. By the end of the week 2 game, they were playing a backup Left Tackle and a 3rd string center. Luckily, the Battlehawks have Kevin Atkins and LaCale London (KaKAle) lining up over those same 2 guys, and they have been playing lights out so far. DC has started pretty slow in both of their games, so getting them off the field quickly and getting points early is going to be key to winning this game.
That’s because if DC can get some momentum or a lead, they’re going to gut you with their running game from their QBs and Runningbacks. Ta’amu has had success using his legs on both designed runs and scrambles (17 carries for 77 yards) especially when he’s going to his left. That’s trouble because that’s exactly where Ben DiNucci was having success in the Battlehawks week 2 game. It was fine then because that meant DiNucci wasn’t throwing it to his good receivers, but this week? Not so much. That’s what DC wants to do and while their receivers aren’t good at catching, they are good at blocking. Those Ta’amu QB runs with no DBs around can really start hurting if the defense doesn’t get them under control.
Then you throw D’Eriq King into the pot. Ta’amu gets his running space because defensive backs are defending the pass. King is different. King has only thrown the ball 3 times and he’s 2/3 for 12 yards. The guy just runs (12 carries for 46 yards). When he’s in the game, most of his effective plays are option reads on the Defensive End. That means he’s either going to hand the ball off to a running back or carry the ball himself, based on where the DE is. I wasn’t impressed by the way the DEs set an edge in week 2, so if they're going to be able to contain this running game, they're really going to have to literally and metaphorically step up to keep the guy with the ball on the inside.
Their running backs are no joke either. #4 Abram Smith (22 carries, 99 yards) and #23 Ryquel Armstead (23 carries, 88 yards) are big guys. Like, BIG big guys who are very hard runners. That’s trouble because San Antonio had big running backs when the Battlehawks played them in week 1, and those guys were able to gash the defense for decent yardage. They only really got stopped when the defense was able to get touches on them within one or two yards of the line of scrimmage. Now, to be fair, the Battlehawks did exactly that pretty often, so I do have faith that they’ll be able to do that same thing again this week, but the margin for error is significantly smaller.
What this comes down to for me, is that the defense needs to keep 1st and 2nd downs to 1-3 yards a piece. In order to do that, they need Ta’amu to throw because DC isn’t a team built to make huge, explosive passing plays and win on 3rd and long. When King is in the game, they can’t freeze on the option plays. If they freeze, they lose physical momentum and those runningbacks will either bulldoze them or get outside and force the smaller guys to tackle. We know the Battlehawks’ defense can play deep into games and they can hold up in the red zone at the end of long drives. I imagine they’ll have to do just that again here.
All-in-all:
Offense, make your catches.
Defense, make your tackles.
Easy enough.
What my heart says:
Battlehawks win 24-16
What my head says:
Battlehawks win 22-20