St. Louis Battlehawks (4-2) @ Houston Roughnecks (4-2)
Sunday 4/2
The Roughnecks started this season 4-0 and since then, they have lost 2 straight. Their wins are against Orlando, San Antonio, Arlington/Dallas, and Las Vegas. Those teams have a combined record of 6-18. That’s not great. Their 2 losses have come against Seattle and DC, with a combined record of 10-2.
Yeah, good teams win against bad teams, and that’s what they did. They just didn’t pull it out when they played against other good teams. They are dangerous, but they can be beaten.
Battlehawks’ Offense v. Roughneck’s Defense
Houston has a good defense. In every game they’ve won, they’ve allowed less than 20 points. Well, the Battlehawks have scored at least 20 points in every game except for Week 1.
Want me to break something to you? This game is going to come down to the trenches. I’m sorry that I blew your mind that hard. If you want to take a break and get some ibuprofen then I’ll give you a second.
Okay.
The Battlehawks’ offensive line has to play at least as well as they did last week to make this a successful offensive outing. Houston’s defense has the most sacks in the XFL at 20. They’re really good and they’re going to get pressure on passing plays. The Roughneck’s defensive backs are the weakest spot of their defense. They have a guy, Kary Vincent who is pretty good and physical, but everyone else is small and nowhere close to being as athletic as the Battlehawks’ wide receivers. If the Battlehawks can get matchups with Hakeem Butler who is 6’ 6” against #3 Ajene Harris, who’s maybe 5’10”, then we’ll see a bully ball game for the ages.
The line just needs to be able to hold long enough for those deep plays to develop.
Darius Shepherd has been crushing it when he gets even moderately open. If the line can hold long enough for Shepherd to do a double move (which can, has, and will work) we’ll see another big game from him.
The line just needs to be able to hold long enough for those deep plays to develop.
If they don’t have the time to get those long balls going, they’re going to need to make sure they don’t do those stupid short-game drops. They’ll need to mix things up too. USE JAKE SUTHERLAND. Houston just played and lost to DC and DC’s tight ends were very effective on mid-range downs. For the love of everything holy, use Jake Sutherland. The Roughnecks’ defense can be had on long drives and even more so when an offense can use tempo consistently. Get the defensive line on their heels and keep them tired. The Roughnecks don’t have a whole lot of depth in that position and they can get got.
As for the running game? Yeesh.
Just as good as the Roughnecks’ defensive line is with their pass rush, their run defense is right there. They’ve allowed an average of 82 yards per game. The Battlehawks’ offensive line is not good enough to get the push for consistent rushes in between the tackles. Hell, with this team it’s between the guards because of how the tackles play. Much like last week, if the running game is going to work, they’re going to need to take advantage of aggressive DEs and bounce the ball outside to isolate the smaller defensive backs.
The overall offensive key to this game is going to be for the Battlehawks to take advantage of field position. That comes down to 2 things:
1. We can expect that the Battlehawks are going to get takeaways on defense. The offense has had trouble turning those into points. They’ve had 14 combined fumble recoveries and interceptions and probably half as many turnovers on downs. They’ve only scored 17 points off of those. We saw them put their foot on the gas last week when they got the ball back from Vegas, and they’re going to need to keep that going this week.
2. The offensive line needs to limit stupid penalties and, you guessed it, play well. I know that’s a big ask.
Battlehawks’ Defense v. Roughnecks’ Offense
You ever have a boss or coworker that’s all up in your business trying to micromanage and tell you what to do every step of the way, even when you’re doing it? That’s AJ Smith, the Roughnecks’ offensive coordinator.
He’s constantly in the quarterback’s ear, telling him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. He tells the quarterback how to line up the offense, which is normal. Then he tells the quarterback what reads to make and then tells them what plays they need to check to, which is less normal. Then he tells the quarterback where to run and where to throw AS THE PLAY IS HAPPENING, which is really super not normal at all. He’s like a guy sitting on the couch yelling at the TV, except it’s directly into the quarterback’s ear. It’s very weird.
Now, to be fair, he does that well.
The Roughnecks have two quarterbacks, Brandon Silver and Cole McDonald. I’m guessing/hoping that these 2 guys aren’t good at reading defenses, or else AJ Smith’s high level of communication is straight-up psychopathic.
This offense is built on big plays. They lead the league in 20+ yard plays with 19 and 40+ yard plays with 8. They are going to be testing the Battlehawks’ defensive backs the entire game. We haven’t seen a whole lot of that this year. We’ve seen offenses pick on intermediate routes near the sideline, but not huge fade, post, and corner routes. I’m kind of excited to see how these safeties hold up when they are getting pushed.
As far as these quarterbacks go, the Roughnecks are in a weird spot. Brandon Silver is good. He’s got a big accurate arm and he’s able to stay in the pocket and hit the guys that either he or the OC want to. Here’s what’s wonky: Silver has been the starter for most of if not the whole season, but he’s been not great the last 2 games. In their loss against Seattle, he went 25/47 for 225 yards and in their loss against DC he was 10/17 for 111 yards. The yardage was good, but the completion percentage wasn’t keeping them in games.
At halftime in the DC game, they switched to Cole McDonald.
I LOVE Cole McDonald. He was the Quarterback at Hawaii from 2016 to 2019 and Hawaii football is a passion of mine, and those were the glory days. I will never outwardly say anything negative about Cole McDonald.
You know… but…
If I had to be critical of him, I would say that he can be inaccurate when he throws on the move, he makes questionable decisions with the ball, he’s almost too willing to tuck the ball and run, and he can get happy feet when he’s in the pocket. I’m sorry Cole. I love you.
Cole is absolutely electric. He’s up there with Ta’amu as far as using his feet goes. His questionable decisions can be so questionable (things like throwing the ball off his back foot across the field on a 6-second scramble drill) that the defense isn’t thinking that he could possibly make them, and they lead to big plays. You guys, he’s electric.
I don’t know who Houston is going to start, but if it’s Silver, I imagine he’s going to be on a short leash.
If the Battlehawks are going to have success against this offense, they’re going to need to scheme up looks that first confuse AJ Smith, but then also confuse the quarterback. They’ll need to bring exotic pressures and keep everyone guessing. A straight-forward base defense is something that simply will not work against an offense that loves it when things play out exactly how they expect them to. They have too many guys who are capable of punishing a flat-footed defense.
I mean, last week Cole McDonald came in and DC used some basic looks. 2 plays later McDonald hit Deonte Burnett for an 85-yard touchdown.
The Battlehawks need to have a very tight game on defense. Those deep shots are going to happen, but they need to make sure Houston doesn’t string together multiple on the same drive. If the offense is forced to stay on the field for long drives, they’ll make mistakes and the Battlehawks will get their takeaways.
Prediction:
I think there are going to be a lot of points here. I don’t think this will be one where 28 points can win it. It’s a “first to 30” kind of game for me. I just don’t know who’s going to get there first.
Give me 32-28 Battlehawks.