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Unless other teams are clueless, this narrative shouldn’t be a thing . . .
Talking about this narrative that Mike White needs to play well in the last two games to show he’s an NFL starting quality QB.
He’s already shown that.
I’m not saying he’s Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow or Josh Allen, but have you seen the QB play for most teams around the league this year?
White has already shown, whether it was in the Jets games against the Cincinnati Bengals and Indianapolis Colts last year, or the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills this year, he could help a number of teams looking for a starting QB – including the Jets.
Obviously, the Jets shouldn’t let him walk, but if they do, there will be suitors, who don’t need to see two more games to pique their interest.
Once again, not putting White in Canton, but if you are a QB-needy team, and there are a lot of them, he’s shown enough already, to be on your radar.
Of course, it’s important for him to play well in these last two games to help keep the Jets playoff hopes alive, but this isn’t an audition. He’s done it in camps, preseason games and five real games. Obviously the 2021 Buffalo game, against the NFL’s #1 defense, wasn’t great, but that happens to the best of them. Everyone has bad games.
Obviously, I’m not making decisions at 1 Jets Drive, but personally, I’ve seen enough to believe they have a legit starter for 2023, and his name is Mike White, if they can re-sign him, and I don’t need to see these last two games to discern that . . .
While on the subject of White, some might wonder what a new contract for him would look like next off-season, if the Jets are able to re-sign him.
My guess would a contract like the one Seattle might give QB Geno Smith after this season.
Obviously we aren’t talking about an upper stratosphere QB deal, but some kind of moderate, perhaps two year deal.
So keep an eye on Smith and the Seahawks when gauging what the Jets could give White. Maybe something a little above the deal that Pittsburgh gave Mitchell Trubisky last off-season, two-years, $14.3 million.
Now, while I don’t believe the last two games of the season will tell us whether White can be a starting QB in the league. I think he’s already proved that, but two strong games, and helping the Jets get into the playoffs, would certainly up the ante on his contract . . .
The Seattle Seahawks play a similar offense to the Jets, so the Jets defensive players have a good feel for it from practice. Seahawks OC Shane Waldron came from the Los Angeles Rams, and plays a scheme similar to Sean McVay, and McVay came from the Shanahan coaching tree, as did Jets OC Mike LaFleur.
As for the Seahawks defense, it used to be the same scheme as the Jets defense under Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich, two Pete Carroll deciples, but Carroll moved away from that scheme last off-season, hiring Vic Fangio disciple Sean Desai to tweak the Seahawks long-time defensive playbook that used a lot of Cover Three looks.
“I was just joking about it the other day though, this is the first time that I can remember from playing Seattle over the years, it was always that staple of Cover 3, and that’s what you were going to get, and that’s what they’re going to live in and they don’t even run it anymore,” Ulbrich said . . .
The Jets special teams have given up two punt returns for touchdowns that won recent games, but there doesn’t seem be any desire to talk to the team’s special team’s coach, when he’s offered to the media every Thursday.
Times have changed on this beat . . .
December 29, 2022
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