New York Jets rookie Max Mitchell got the start at right tackle in the season opener
One of the most notable storylines of the New York Jets’ season opener was the messy offensive tackle situation. After injuries to Mekhi Becton and Duane Brown, rookie Max Mitchell got the start at right tackle in Week 1. The fourth-round pick from Louisiana was thrown directly into the fire against an aggressive Baltimore Ravens defense.
Expectations were low for Mitchell. As a Day 3 rookie coming from a mid-major school who did not practice with the first-team offensive line until the week ahead of his first game, it was tough to picture Mitchell having anything other than a rough day.
Against all odds, the rookie went out and surpassed expectations. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw from him on film.
That’s not to say that Mitchell was amazing. I wouldn’t even say he was “good” or “average”.
However, I do not think he was “terrible”, either. I would classify Mitchell’s performance as “below average” by starting tackle standards, which is far beyond what many people expected and a great springboard for the 22-year-old to build off of.
Here are a bunch of the most notable plays I saw from Mitchell on film, both good and bad.
Max Mitchell film
Mitchell wears #61 and lines up at right tackle.
Some good and bad here from Mitchell. I like the lateral mobility and the inside leverage that he gains. But veteran defensive end Calais Campbell is able to erase Mitchell’s positional advantage by pulling him forward to easily shed the block. Campbell gets in on the tackle.
Mitchell bounces back against Campbell with a good rep in protection. Campbell goes for the club/swim combo move to the inside but Mitchell shuts it down, keeping him far away from the pocket. Campbell eventually gets a hit on Flacco but that’s no fault of Mitchell, as it’s Laken Tomlinson and George Fant who are responsible for forcing Flacco into Mitchell’s man.
Excellent rep by Mitchell against veteran edge rusher Justin Houston. Tight end C.J. Uzomah blocks down on the 5-technique defensive end (who is over Mitchell’s outside shoulder) while Mitchell kicks out to take the edge. Mitchell creates plenty of lateral movement against Houston.
Another nice run play from Mitchell. He works inside and helps out Alijah Vera-Tucker with Campbell, creating some push to the inside. Mitchell then comes off the block and works back outside to seal the edge. A hole is created in the B-gap, but Michael Carter is unable to get there.
There were a few instances in which pre-snap movement caused Mitchell to miss an assignment off the edge.
Here, the Jets’ motion of Braxton Berrios prompts Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen (#6) to slide further outside and closer to the line of scrimmage, which should alert Mitchell that he needs to be aware of Queen. Instead, Mitchell begins the play by working inside and is late to recognize Queen, allowing him to blow up the play in the backfield.
Solid protection rep from Mitchell. Houston looks for the speed rush coming out of a wide-9 alignment. Mitchell sends him up the arc and past the quarterback.
Mitchell with another stout rep in protection. Tyler Conklin helps Mitchell out by passing the defensive end into Mitchell’s grasp, and Mitchell does the rest.
Fantastic rep from Mitchell on the back side. Already possessing inside leverage on his man pre-snap due to the alignment, Mitchell works vertically and gets his hips turned outside to seal the defensive end out of the play.
Now we see the opposite outcome from Mitchell on a back side run block. Mitchell comes off the line with wide hands and the 4i-technique defensive tackle does a great job of immediately getting his outside arm into Mitchell’s chest, establishing complete control. Mitchell is plowed into the backfield and his man makes the stop on Breece Hall.
Nothing too flashy here, but Mitchell keeps Odafe Oweh in front of him while protecting on an island.
Mitchell paves the way for a 14-yard Breece Hall run. Great lateral movement against the outside linebacker.
Nice stunt pickup from Mitchell and Vera-Tucker. Mitchell drops back and keeps his eyes on the edge defender, but he also leaves his inside hand extended to feel out if the DT is coming his way (great show of awareness). Once Mitchell feels that Vera-Tucker is passing off the DT to him, he turns his attention inside and picks up the DT. Good pass-off from Vera-Tucker.
Like I mentioned earlier, here is another example of pre-snap motion causing Mitchell to miss an assignment.
Berrios’s movement causes Queen (#6) to slide outside and become the new EMOL (end man on line of scrimmage), replacing #99 and likely making him Mitchell’s new assignment. Mitchell doesn’t seem to recognize Queen’s movement at all, as he still blocks #99 and lets Queen fly by untouched. By the time Mitchell recognizes Queen, it’s too late.
Mitchell does a good job in protection against Oweh. Conklin helps Mitchell out with a chip on Oweh before getting into his route. Oweh tries to bend the corner on Mitchell but the rookie is ready, sending him past the quarterback.
Not a good job by Mitchell against this stunt. Mitchell’s man (#60) drops into his coverage, leaving him without an assignment, so he turns his head inside and looks for work. That’s good. However, Mitchell fails to notice #93 looping toward him. Mitchell tries to help Vera-Tucker and is oblivious to #93. Mitchell notices him late and does a decent job of recovering to buy Flacco a little more time, but #93 eventually gets home to pressure Flacco.
Strong work in a one-on-one against Oweh. Mitchell catches Oweh’s chest with his inside hand. Oweh tries to swipe Mitchell’s hand off of him and convert into a rip move to the outside, but Mitchell shuts that down. Oweh then tries to work into an inside spin, and Mitchell shuts that down too.
Oweh goes for a bull rush against Mitchell. The rookie does a solid job of absorbing it and anchoring down.
As you’ve probably noticed, the Jets definitely tried to help Mitchell out in this game using the tight ends. On this play, just like in many plays we’ve watched so far, Uzomah forces Oweh to widen out extremely far away from the pocket, buying plenty of time and space to help Mitchell out. Mitchell then shuts down Oweh’s outside rush and sends him past the quarterback.
Shaky rep here from Mitchell. He oversets to the outside and Oweh makes him pay, using a double-swipe move to beat him inside. Fortunately, Vera-Tucker is there to slow Oweh down before he gets home on Flacco. But Oweh bested Mitchell this time after a short win streak by the rook.
Oweh gets another win against Mitchell to the inside. Mitchell whiffs on his punch and Oweh responds with an inside spin to get through the B-gap. Vera-Tucker can’t save Mitchell this time as Oweh hits Flacco’s arm while he throws.
Yet another play in which Oweh beats Mitchell inside. Oweh sells upfield and gets Mitchell to open up to the outside. He then stabs his inside arm into Mitchell’s chest and tosses him aside, working back inside through the B-gap. It’s an example of the strength concerns that were commonly levied upon Mitchell when he was drafted.
Oweh gets some pressure on Flacco, possibly contributing to why Flacco misses his throw to an open Garrett Wilson in the end zone. In fairness to Mitchell, Oweh appears to possibly get away with a hands to the face penalty, but the technique wasn’t ideal nonetheless.
I think this is a fitting play to end the review with. It highlights two of the things Mitchell needs to work on the most if he is going to become a good NFL starter. Number one, he’s got to continue getting stronger so he doesn’t get tossed around like this. Number two, he must work on refraining from oversetting to the outside so he does not leave himself vulnerable to getting beat inside.
An up-and-down debut for Max Mitchell: Which is better than anyone could have hoped
Max Mitchell’s first NFL start was a mixed bag. But when you consider the circumstances, that is a very positive outcome for him and the Jets. Mitchell easily could have had a disastrous game in which he looked lost and blew up the Jets’ entire offense. Instead, he held his own quite often – more often than his veteran peers, in fact. (I’m looking at you, George Fant and Laken Tomlinson.)
One respectable start from Mitchell isn’t enough to guarantee that he is ready to play at a starter-caliber level throughout his rookie season. Maybe he gets exposed next week by Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney. He must continue building before we can be sure of anything.
If he does build upon his debut performance, though, the Jets offense might be able to stay afloat with a first-year Mitchell in the lineup after all.
Next Article: What went wrong with NY Jets offense vs. Ravens? | Film
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Michael, thank you for this article! I asked for this a few days ago in the comment section. Did that prompt you to write it? This article prompted me to join as a yearly member. This is the height of sports journalism. I learned so much from it. How long did it take you to complete it? Instead of just being a snarky reporter with SOJ after this very tough loss, we get this masterpiece. I am hoping against hope that Max becomes an average tackle in terms of performance by the end of the year. When Brown went down, for the first time I regretted we lost Chuma Edoga. I am a Jet optimist. I still think we can win 7 games.
Thanks for reading, glad you enjoyed! I was already thinking about doing it, but yes I think your comment definitely pushed me straight into starting it haha. Hopefully Mitchell can build on this and put together a respectable rookie season in which the Jets can survive with him starting. If he can do that, he’ll have a good chance of taking another step forward in the future and becoming an above-average/good starter. Would be a huge coup to come out of this year with Mitchell making himself an option to start at OT in 2023.
Big test coming up this week with Clowney. I think Clowney’s strength and explosion make him a perfect mismatch for Mitchell’s weaknesses. Would say a lot if Mitchell could rise to this challenge.
I am pleasantly surprised at the performance. As you say, not stellar, but not abysmal either.
Thank you for taking the time to put these clips together, wonderful tool to assess talent.
I would say that Mitchell’s foot movement and overall strength are his biggest issues. Clip #9 when he gets beat inside is b/c his feet are too narrow, lack of base means lack of power. His first step right looks better than left.
Time will tell, but I’m optomistic.
happy with some of the technique from Max, but Tomlinson and Fant stood at more on some clips for how abysmal they played. Need to go into 2023 with a FA OT and draft another and have competition and depth.
Brutal start for both of them, they need to get back on track. Even if they can just be league-average starters it would do wonders for this offense in comparison to what they provided in Week 1. But yes, tackle is going to be a prime need next year.
Hey Michael. Just curious that there was never any talk about moving AVT out to RT and then filling his spot with a backup G like Feeney. I never heard it even mentioned anywhere but it seems so obvious to me that it would have been the right move. We went up in the draft to claim AVT. Seems like a waste of talent at RG.
Thoughts?
Also, I liked what I saw from Mitchell, for the most part. I just think AVT is a far better option.
I think AVT’s length limits his NFL potential at tackle. At 32 1/8 inches he’s well below the threshold for an NFL tackle. Even watching him at guard right now, I think that lack of length is already one of his biggest issues at the moment. He can struggle to get hands-on and often gets swatted/swiped. And this is on the interior where everything is more condensed and his opponents are not as fast/explosive as they’d be on the edge.
He has a star-caliber ceiling at guard, at tackle I think his ceiling would be limited to probably league-average at best.
Makes perfect sense. But it sound kind of funny to say “we started a 4th round rookie bc his arms are long.” Haha. I played LT in college and semi-pro. And my arms are long as hell. 6’5″, 320. Maybe I could start at RT. Haha
I also think they probably just don’t want to move him around too much, they already asked him to switch positions from T to G as a rookie and then switch sides from LG to RG this year, so more movement could make it tough for him to develop as a young player. At this point it might be best to let him stick at RG and focus on that
Overall, I think it’s a good start. He’ll get beat up for sure at some point but he appears to have some good awareness. Some of that motion stuff he should be able to pick up on more quickly. I mean it didn’t look worse than anything we’ve seen from McDermott.
Thanks for the cut ups Michael. This is why I said last week that I almost didn’t mind Mitchell being thrust into the role. At this stage of the rebuild, you still have the “luxury” of learning what you’ve got in young players. The big hope here is he learns off start 1 and grows (he was clearly overmatched on the pre-snap movements). These cut ups clearly show how alarmingly bad Flacco was. For a veteran, he had minimal answers for the dirty pockets and with no mobility, absent him improving, he has no business starting. I give him max 1 quarter against the Browns to prove he should remain on the field.
Agreed. Not sure why they stick with the statue. Let White loose and see how that goes. And, OC, open the damn playbook. Use your playmakers. Have fun with it.