Purple Path Forward - Week 13 Jets Crash and Burn

Jets are coming to town so we have to ask: Who is the least entertaining Wilson?

It’s even worse than you might think. The last Jets savior, Sam Darnold, has reached the point in his career where everyone agrees he stinks. Before that, maybe he had some promise. But a quick comparison of the first two years of Darnold and Wilson shows that the Jets actually had it relatively good with Darnold.



This was going to be one of the easiest “How to Beat” posts to write, the answer used to be: Just score a touchdown and the Vikings will probably win. Follow that up with a bunch of plane crash memes and I've got a post. But apparently, the Jets realized that Zach Wilson is terrible, so now I have to figure out if Mike White is any good. The stats say White is way better but, if it were that simple, White would have been the starter all along; so I had to watch some games.

For the purpose of the post, I’m focusing on how to beat Mike White. The Jets have a good defense, but after the Bills and Patriots games, the Vikings have proven they can put up enough points to win vs a bad offense.  I need to know if the Jets have an offense like the Cowboys where one mistake can send an entire game off schedule.

After watching a few games (there aren’t many to choose from) of Mike White, my conclusion is White sitting behind Zach Wilson is a lot like Taylor Heinicke: Zach Wilson and Carson Wentz have the arm to make more throws, but Heinicke and White are better at playing the position of quarterback. In fact, White might be even more limited than Heinicke. What I saw from White was lots and lots of short passes: swing passes to the sideline, screens and plays designed to get the ball to a running back in space. I was most familiar with Heinicke’s game against the Vikings, so I compared Heinicke’s throw chart in that game to Mike White’s throw chart vs the Bears.



The first thing I noticed was just how much the Jets kept White throwing near the line of scrimmage, I thought Heinicke was limited with arm strength, but White’s arm is apparently an even more overcooked spaghetti noodle. The legend of Mike White actually started last year when he came in and threw for 400 yards and 3 TDs vs the Bengals, the throw chart from that game looks very similar with a lot short and a few deep connections (more on that game later).

However, White was 5/5 for 3 TDs on his attempts beyond 11 yards. Those aren't super long bombs, but those five throws are going to determine how I would defend them. Was White just hitting open guys and exploiting mistakes by the defense, or was he making things happen with aggressive throws? Here are the five throws in game order:

1. 8 Yard TD to Garrett Wilson


A touchdown throw from the 8-yard line shouldn’t be this open, this doesn’t quite qualify as great coverage by the Bears secondary. You can see #22 on the ground in the lower left, he was actually called for a hold on #17 Garrett Wilson, fell over as he released the hold. Conclusion: not a difficult throw for White.

2. 42 Yards to Elijah Moore


Great timing on this throw to Elijah Moore. The defender was inside Moore, but then Moore curled around above the defender just as the ball got there. This is a tricky play, it was covered, and the defender was a few inches away from picking this off or at least tipping the pass, but if White can hit this throw consistently while converting the short stuff at a high rate, that will be a problem.

3. 54 Yard TD to Garrett Wilson



I guess this is what qualifies as coverage in Chicago? No. 22 Kindle Vildor was chasing Garrett Wilson, expecting safety help. The safety help was otherwise occupied getting revenge on his own ankle. The sideline view showed how much space was out there with the safety on his butt.


4. 22 Yard TD to Elijah Moore


Moore ran a curl route, not an out to the sideline. I was watching for this because I was curious if White has the arm to hit a deep out. Moore juked his man and White got the ball there. Good timing again, but the throw didn’t require a lot of mustard to fit the ball in a tight window.


5. 29 Yards to Tyler Conklin


The Bears linebackers just stayed in their zones rather than following Conklin. This was a deep out I was looking for, but since it was mostly wide open, White didn’t need to put any kind of zip on the ball. White kind of floated the ball over the linebackers instead of having to put it on a rope.  Conklin was far too slow to break this into a bigger play. This would be threatening to Garrett Wilson, Moore or Mims, but they would be covered differently.

My conclusion on those five throws:
Bad coverage played a significant role in three of those long passes (#1, 2, 5), the Vikings should try to not fall on their faces. White made really good timing throws on #2 and #4. Throw #2 is just a great move and accurate throw, I’ll concede that to an offense. Throw #4 is the sort of thing the Vikings have given up a lot of this season.

On plays where the defender was not laying on the ground, Mike White threw for 252 yards and 2 TDs. That’s a good game, but nothing that says “this is the guy”; especially considering the Bears were bad on defense before they suffered a number of injuries in the secondary and offloaded their best pass rusher.

How to beat the Jets
The Vikings will have to decide if they want to sit on all those short throws, which make up 80% of the Jets passing offense, or treat White as a normal NFL QB and take away those five deep throws. One thing I didn’t find was White hitting passes over the top of the defense, that’s not to say he can’t but it doesn’t seem to be the throw he’s looking for; when White makes a play, it’s usually because someone found an easy-to-hit hole in the zone (or a defender fell over). Given that other Mike White games have looked similar, I would focus on taking away the short stuff first.

A critical part of this would be to cover the Jets running backs as if they are receivers. Kendricks or Hicks should be shadowing a running back on every pass play. Getting back to Mike White’s 2021, 400-yard breakout game against the Bengals, running backs had 14 catches for 166 yards and 1 TD.

I would accept one big play to Moore or Wilson if it means shutting down that short pass engine. One last look at plays to decide if that risk is acceptable, Garrett Wilson and Denzell Mims both had big catches against the Patriots, I want to see what those looked like, and specifically do they look like things Mike White can do?

54 Yards Wilson to Garrett Wilson:


This ball was caught inside the 30, so it was 45-50+ yards in the air on the run.

63 Yard Catch and run by Mimms


That looks short compared to the throw to Wilson but compare it to the Mike White pass chart and it’s 8 yards deeper than most of what White throws. The pass was also a fastball into a small coverage window, Mims broke it for a long run after catch. The little NY Mets style lob pass that White has gets picked off on this play.

Both of those throws illustrate why I think the Jets will give at least one Wilson every chance to not be shipped off to a deserted island and forgotten forever. I don’t think Mike White has either of those throws in his toolbox. This confirms that to beat the Jets, the Vikings need to sit on that short passing game.