All-Twenty Tuesday: Bucs S Jordan Whitehead

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I wanted to dive into some of Whitehead’s film over the last two games to not just point out his stats but also give some situational context as to what he is doing well and how he’s putting himself in position to be a difference maker on this team.

In the first clip above, the play itself wasn’t even what I wanted to highlight. Notice what Whitehead was doing in the pre-snap. As a safety, you are on the back end. You have everything in front of you. Though the middle linebacker is the one who talks to the defensive coordinator and dictates the initial defensive calls, they aren’t the only ones who are communicating in the pre-snap.

Through two games I’ve noticed that Whitehead is the adjustment player. When the other teams sends guys in motion, Whitehead is often the one moving to react to it or is at least is the one calling things out so the rest of the defense can adjust accordingly. Every time I saw motion, I saw Whitehead reacting and communicating with the rest of the team – and doing it confidently. As just a second year player, it’s clear Whitehead is becoming a vocal leader as much as one that lets his play do some talking, too.

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As stated before, this film breakdown won’t be “look at this play” as much as it is “look at this set up.” I chose the play above because it helps highlight what Whitehead’s role has been through two weeks.

Each year it seems more teams find their big-play, mismatch monster at the tight end position. Guys like Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Zach Ertz, O.J. Howard, Evan Engram, all those guys are making life very difficult for defensive coordinators who have to plan for them. That group only grows each year, as we saw guys like Noah Fant and T.J. Hockenson become first rounders last April.

For every offensive mismatch, defenses have to try to find their own mismatch neutralizers, if you will. So far, at least for tight ends, the Bucs have chosen Whitehead to be that guy. Defensive coordinator Todd Bowles said of 49ers tight end George Kittle (who is the subject in the play above) that it takes more than one guy to stop him. He’s right, but he still has to be someone’s main assignment.

In the play above, the Bucs allowed Whitehead to follow Kittle all the way out to the sideline, as Kittle was lined up as an outside receiver at the top of the screen. This showed a great deal of confidence in Whitehead’s abilities in man coverage.

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As shown in the clip above, that kind of base assignment didn’t stop with Kittle. Against Carolina the following week – actually it was four days later, thanks NFL – Whitehead was matched up with Panthers tight end Greg Olsen for most of the game.

This is the kind of role I think we can expect to see from Whitehead for the foreseeable future. With his 4.5 40-yard dash speed and his strength with more weight on his 200-pound body, Whitehead has the ability to lineup with tight ends at the line of scrimmage, in the slot or at the boundary.

Last year we weren’t really seeing a ton of that. Former Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Mike Smith seemed very hesitant to get away from a 2-high safety look, even if one of them had the responsibility of covering a tight end. That made for a lot of open space between the tight end and the man covering them. This year, what the Bucs will do is rotate down.

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Watch as Whitehead moved all the way outside again (top of the screen) to cover Kittle. In response, the other safety, Darian Stewart, moved to the center of the field as to set himself up for a Cover 1 (one safety covering the entire deep zone by himself) look, a more aggressive style of defense than a Cover 2 (two safeties splitting the deep field in half).

In the particular play above, Stewart was actually in man coverage on the running back and it ended up being Cover 0 (all man coverage with no deep zone). But, it still demonstrated how Tampa Bay has no problem allowing Whitehead to match up against a team’s tight end, no mater where they are, and adjust their safety play accordingly.

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Sometimes – most of the time, really – teams don’t have their tight ends all the way out wide, though. More often you’ll see them at or near the trenches. Just because Whitehead is on the slimmer side in terms of size for a defensive player doesn’t mean they’re afraid to still allow him to play close to the line or scrimmage.

In the play above, Whitehead was lined up over the strong side of the line of scrimmage (near the bottom of the screen) because that’s where Kittle was. Once Whitehead knew it was a run play, he then used his speed to get inside and make the tackle for loss. Whitehead’s speed isn’t just used in coverage. He seems to be a good asset to line up against tight ends no matter where they are.

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Modern day tight ends do a lot of their receiving work in the slot. As shown above, Whitehead is comfortable covering them in that area, too.

Whitehead wasn’t afraid to be physical last year, but he was so light in terms of body mass that he would really have to throw himself at bigger players to affect them. This year, with more weight on him, he appears more in control when getting his hands on guys. This certainly helps in coverage when limiting separation for catches, as shown above.

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When Tampa Bay general manager Jason Licht talked about football being everything to guys from Aliquippa, plays like the one above are exactly what he’s talking about.

Whitehead is still working on his coverage. He’s a little slow to turn his hips and there were a few times that he got beat on some double moves and fakes in coverage against the 49ers. But this kid can defender the run like a champ, and that comes from him not being afraid to do the dirty work.

As a safety down in the box, he’s often set up over the edge. There usually isn’t another defender between him and the sideline other than the cornerback, and they don’t count as an edge-setter. The linebackers are all usually more towards the middle, which means you’re the last line of defense to the sidelines.

That is the thought process behind the play above. The Panthers plan here was: motion the slot player across the line of scrimmage, angle block the defensive linemen and linebackers towards the middle, pull two leader blockers from the backside and set things up so a 200-pound safety is forced to go up against a moving, pulling 320-pound offensive lineman. When you’re giving up more than 100 pounds to someone, you’re usually going to lose any match-up that asks you to get physical. But somehow Whitehead doesn’t lose those battles nearly as much as you think. Instead of getting washed out or even worse just getting dominated by the much bigger offensive lineman, Whitehead knew it was his job to set the edge and turn McCaffrey back inside where he knew he had help. In order to do this, he had to sacrifice the body, and he did so without hesitation.

The best run defenders don’t always make the tackles. Sometimes they do the dirty work for the tackle to be made by someone else. Whitehead had a handful of plays like the one above in both games where he was the deference-maker, even if he didn’t get a stat for it.

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But sometimes it is about being the tackler, the show-stopper, the play-maker; Whitehead has certainly been that, too, through two games. No bigger play than the one shown above.

Did Cam Newton get the ball to the line? Eh, maybe. It was close. But the point is Whitehead took on one of the best short yardage players in the NFL in open space one-on-one with only one yard to yield and shut him down.

Can it really be a surprise Whitehead his coming into his own since the signs of growth and potential production have been there since he got to Tampa? No, but Bucs fans should enjoy them all the same.

Whitehead still has a ways to go in terms of being comfortable in coverage. But without him I’m not sure they play those two games as closely as they did on the defensive side of the football. He’s become their back end communicator, their dirty work run game defender, their reliable last line of defense, and the play-maker they need from the safety position.