Arlington Renegades @ St. Louis BattleHawks
Let’s start with some news before we get into the meat of the preview:
Starting left Tackle, Jaryd Jones-Smith got suspended for two games because of the fight at the end of last week’s game. You might be asking yourself, “Jaryd Jones-Smith? He’s got a lot of names, that must mean he’s good, right?” No. You’re wrong, you big dummy. The number of names someone has doesn’t correlate to play. Why would you think that? He’s been playing poorly all year and his lack of performance led directly to the very effective pressures from opposing defensive lines. What worries me about this, as I’ve said before, is the talent level of his backup, Eric Magwood. We’ve seen the BattleHawks change personnel on the interior of the line, which means they are aware of their issues, but they haven’t tried new tackles. To me, that means they don’t really have faith in Magwood. Personally, the offensive tackle play can’t really get any worse, so I’m excited to see what new blood does for them on AJ McCarron’s blind side.
Marcell Ateman and Allie Green have been placed on the Reserve List. Green has kind of been a non-factor for the team because of injuries so that one is a little less important. Ateman though? That one is a bummer. He hasn’t been exactly lighting up the field as much as you would want your #1 draft pick to, but he was a big guy who could make plays and his loss could be felt, especially this week with a banged-up wide receiver room, which is a very real thing right now.
Injury Reports
I have a rating scale for Injury Reports. They can be “Not too bad”, “Considerable”, or “Mondo-sized”. This week’s report is Considerable. Also, the XFL makes it incredibly difficult to find any information on up-to-date injury reports, so this information is from Thursday, 3/9.
BattleHawks
Steven Mitchell, WR, Quad, Limited on Thursday. He was the 1-for-1 replacement for Darrius Shepherd when he was dinged up a little bit.
Brian Hill, RB, Hammy, Limited on Thursday. He’s still dealing with the Hammy from week 1, I’d assume.
Hakeem Butler, WR, Hammy, Limited on Thursday. Pretty not great to see the WR1 pop up on the injury report. Especially with Marcell Ateman out, there’s not really another big guy to step in.
Vadal Alexander, RG, Shoulder, Limited on Thursday. With Dallas Warmack getting reps and doing well at guard in week 3, this isn’t as big of a deal as it could be.
Jon Alexander, S, Wrist Fracture, Limited on Thursday. Defenders can play with broken hands. Probably sucks to do it, but they can.
Juwan Bushell-Beatty, RT, Foot Contusion, Limited on Thursday. Sucks that a dude is hurt, but on a football level, he didn’t really do anything when he played. Again, I’m just worried about the talent of the backups for the offensive tackles that have allowed the most sacks in the league.
Renegades
The Renegades only have two guys on their injury report and they’re both linebackers. It’s a position that they have a lot of depth in, so it’s not the worst thing in the world for them. The biggest thing here is who is NOT on the Injury Report.
That’s Josh Hawkins, the Renegades’ really good cornerback. At the very end of their last game, he tore his ACL. Hawkins is 30, and as a guy with experience tearing his ACL when he was 30, I would really really not recommend it. It’s that kind of “Every waking moment” pain.
Preview
BattleHawks Offense v. Renegades Defense
The strength of this Renegades team is their defense, by kind of a lot. Their Linebackers are a guy named Donald Payne and a guy named Darnell Sankey, and they are big, strong, fast, and smart. They’ll fly around the field and make big-time tackles against the run and are good at dropping into coverage. Passes in the middle of the field are going to be hard to get for the BattleHawks, especially with Hakeem Butler who might not be at 100%. For this passing game to work, the BattleHawks are going to need to attack the cornerbacks, and with Josh Hawkins going out, that should be something that’s easier to do. We know that McCarron has had issues dialing in this throws to out-routes in the flat, so that’ll be important for him to get right, but there are also going to be open throws in intermediate space and he has been good on those. So he should be able to make gains if he can get good protection. Which will more than likely be at a premium… you know… again.
Last week we didn’t know that the game was going to come down to turnovers because we had never really seen this BattleHawks team turn the ball over. Then they did it 4 times. This game is going to come down to them again.
The Renegades get turnovers. The Renegades get a LOT of turnovers. They’ve gotten at least 3 in every game. It’s 7 fumble recoveries and 2 interceptions. Some of these fumbles are linebackers stripping the ball away, but a handful of them come from BIG hits. The two interceptions they’ve had were both returned for touchdowns, but that was in week 1, so you have to imagine that’s not sustainable.
The thing about the Renegades is that they score off of turnovers. Almost exclusively.
Battlehawks Defense v. Renegades Offense
I say the Renegades score almost exclusively off turnovers because they’ve only scored 10 points when they have to drive the field. To be fair, they’ve only scored 3 touchdowns on offense and have kicked 4 field goals all season, and that’s because this offense isn’t very good. For the most part.
The Renegades are last in the XFL in passing yards, rushing yards, yards per carry, total yards per game, and scoring, but they are a very weird 2-1.
This team wants to run the ball. They’re not very good at it, but they want to do it. It’s a very old-fashioned and boring offense with uninspired playcalling. If the BattleHawks can get up early and protect the ball, the Renegades will have almost no answer.
Now here’s the twist:
The Renegades started Drew Plitt at QB in weeks 1 and 2, and Kyle Sloter in week 3. At about halftime in week 3, they actually started throwing the ball with a little bit of success.
I’m about 50-50 on what they’re going to try to do in this game. On one side, they got Kyle Sloter ending a game in a rhythm and he got their first touchdown that didn’t come off a turnover, so they should probably keep going with that. On the other side, their head coach Bob Stoops and offensive coordinator Jon Hayes are both boneheads.
It’s funky is all.
Say they do run:
Their running back, De’Veon Smith, hits hard. I always talk about the contact between a running back and a linebacker and how they hit the ground. The BattleHawks linebackers have had issues with tackling backward meaning running backs are getting an extra yard or two while they are being tackled. If this BattleHawks’ linebacker unit doesn’t set the tone early, we’re going to see some very frustrating 3rd down conversions like we did last week.
Kyle Sloter is probably the least athletic of QBs the BattleHawks have played. Last week we saw Ta’amu use his legs in clutch spots and the week before that Ben DiNucci did the same thing. We know that the weak side of this defense can be exposed by designed QB runs, and while the Renegades might try that, I don’t think Sloter has the explosiveness to do consistent damage.
Now let’s say they go pass-heavy:
They line up in 12 personnel a lot, meaning they play with 1 running back, 2 tight ends, and 2 wide receivers. They’ve really got 1 good guy. Their tight end Sal Canella is leading the league in tight end receptions. He’s pretty slippery for a tight end. He’ll find open spots in coverage, and he has pretty reliable hands.
I mean, that’s kind of it. They have some other guys, but they don’t really stand out a whole lot. And that makes sense because again, this is one of the worst offenses in the XFL.
I know I said, the Renegades’ defense gets a lot of turnovers but they’re still only 2nd in the league. Do you know who’s first? The BattleHawks. You don’t necessarily want to count on your defense getting game-changing plays, but I think it might be safe to assume that they can get a few in 60 minutes, especially against a team who has had some ball security issues.
Overall thoughts
If the BattleHawks lose this game, it’s going to be similar to last week. Turnovers will kill them. The defense will be playing run-first and then pass plays on the outside will keep long drives going.
I don’t see that happening again, but I’m just trying to cover all my bases.
What my Heart says:
28-6 BattleHawks
What my Brain says:
28-12 BattleHawks
I love it when I’m in sync with myself.
See you at the game.