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We all know
the media loves quarterback controversies.
From a content standpoint, they are the gift that keep on giving.
And this Jets quarterback situation has a chance to be a QB controversy of biblical proportions.
Look, I’m not going to be involved in stirring up it up, but I’m just dealing with the reality of the situation. My worldview is you play the best players at every position regardless of how they were acquired – first round, waivers, whatever.
How can you reach the highest levels of success any other way? Does confirmation bias with draft picks lead to a lot of Super Bowl rings? Not to my knowledge.
I personally don’t think Mike White is a flash in the pan and is going to fade. I have seen him practice with the Jets for the last two years, and as I’ve mentioned ad infinitum, he outplayed Sam Darnold in 2020 camp, and Zach Wilson in 2021 camp.
And honestly, he wasn’t bad against New England. Yes, he had two picks, but you could see the poise, field vision, intelligence and pocket presence in Foxboro. The first pass of his NFL career, has to go down as one of the best first passes of an NFL career, that perfectly placed TD throw to Corey Davis into bracketed coverage.
Then, with a week of getting the first-team reps, and having a game plan prepared specifically for him, he put on one of the greatest first start performances in NFL history against a very good defense.
Now it’s going to be hard to go out there every week and play as he did against the Bengals, but my instincts tell me his play going forward isn’t going to suffer a precipitous drop. Not from what I’ve seen in practice and two games.
Some people are trying to diminish his performance by claiming he was taking easy throws and dinking and dunking against Cincinnati. Jets coach Robert Saleh shot down the theory that his performance should be taken with a grain of salt since he was taking the “easy” throws.
“Football is a game of space, right? A lot of times, defense is going to dictate what space they give you,” said Saleh. “In the case yesterday, every game is going to play out differently. In yesterday’s case, Cincinnati gave space underneath, they took away the deep ball. That’s what they’ve been doing all year. Mike took the space.
“They were doing everything they could to keep the ball upfront, which allowed for a lot of space underneath and Mike (White) did a really good job getting it to the guys underneath and then those guys did a really nice job creating yards after the catch.”
Tom Brady has made a living doing this for two decades. Not comparing White to Tom Brady, just saying there was nothing wrong with White’s approach on Sunday.
But here is the bottom line in comparing White to Zach Wilson right now. Wilson has a better arm and is more athletic, but White is better, right now, at reading defenses, throwing with anticipation, and on hot-reads. If Wilson can improve in these areas, and remember he’s only 22, he has a higher ceiling than White. However, right now, White, who entered the league in 2018 with Dallas, and has a lot more NFL practice reps than Wilson, is ahead of Wilson in these areas. There is no way around that.
We will see how it plays out, but I refuse to get involved in stoking the flames on a QB controversy. I will leave that to others.
Like I said on Sunday, this is a heck of a problem to have if eventually it allows you to trade one of those quarterbacks for a king’s ransom, which allows you to fill holes at a bunch of other positions.
November 1, 2021
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