In Leading Jets To Easy Win, White Was Everything Wilson Hasn’t Been
“He made the easy look easy.”
As a head coach with a defensive bent, that’s all Robert Saleh wants out of his Jets quarterbacks. No need to replicate “The Greatest Show on Turf” Rams offenses from the past; just be efficient and convert third downs.
Mike White did that and more in his first start in 12.5 months, throwing for 315 yards and three touchdowns without committing a turnover through heavy rains in Gang Green’s 31-10 thumping of visiting Chicago on Sunday.
Now, it’s highly probable that any of the Jets’ three QBs that have seen action this season could have beaten a battered and bad Bears squad that was missing, among others, starting quarterback Justin Fields and three quarters of their secondary. And it remains to be seen how White will fare when the Jets (7-4) face high-quality opponents in the next two weeks at Minnesota and Buffalo.
What is now incontrovertible, though, is that White, for all his limitations in arm strength and athleticism, plays at the pace most desired by the Jets’ coaching staff. The offense gets out of the huddle and lines up so that the play clock is not a concern. The ball comes out of White’s hands quickly and the throws are not only accurate, but are also placed where the receivers can gain additional yardage after the catch. Missed “layups” on short throws are rare occurrences.
In other words, White is everything Zach Wilson isn’t, or maybe hasn’t yet proven he can be. Whereas Wilson is tied with Fields for the longest average release time this season among the 39 qualified QBs at 3.12 seconds, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, White got it out on average in 2.63 seconds on Sunday, the seventh-fastest release for the week. Wilson also owns the third-worst expected completion percentage over expected (minus-7%) this season; White sported a solid plus-4% on Sunday.
Maybe the explanation is due to differing mentalities. It always seemed like Wilson would rather wait to see if longer routes broke free whereas White was copasetic with checking down to his underneath receivers far earlier in his internal clock. In his seven games, Wilson’s average intended air yards was 8.1 per attempt while White’s was 5.8 air yards against Chicago.
Ironically, despite all those quick, short throws, White’s yards per attempt (11.3) and expected points added per play (0.65) were both superior to any of Wilson’s 20 starts. Not bad for a 2018 fifth-round pick who got his first taste of NFL regular season action in four games with the Jets last season. His similar performance in a 34-31 upset of Super Bowl-bound Cincinnati in Week 8 while Wilson was nursing a knee injury made him an instant legend. Then White got hurt in the next game at Indianapolis and threw four picks to fuel a Buffalo slaughter, putting out his flame. Wilson, for whom the team invested heavily with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, never felt that his job was threatened after returning to health.
Until now.
Again, White’s job was far easier than anything Wilson had to deal with this season since the Bears barely touched him, registering one sack among 3 total QB hits. That’s around what Wilson would get on a single 10-play possession, Still, Wilson’s main issue was that instead of quickly processing, “Progression 1, progression 2, progression 3”, and then throwing, he’d go, “Progression 1…what’s the pass rush look like?…where are my escape routes?,” and then, if he could, he’d throw it somewhere from an off-balance position.
It's too much drama, and I’m not even talking about his ill-advised responses following the Jets’ ugly and demoralizing 10-3 loss at New England last week where the team generated a whopping 44 net yards passing. Too many of Wilson’s dropbacks made the coaching staff (and fans) cringe like it was a negative play waiting to happen. Worse, there were no signs that it was getting better. That’s why everyone at One Jets Drive was on board for making him go through a “reset” despite the winning record.
White, meanwhile, seems to spread love around the Jets’ locker room. He connected with 10 different receivers on Sunday, even unlocking Elijah Moore from the doghouse.
Moore, New York’s team’s leading receiver in yards last season as a rookie after his second-round selection in the 2021 NFL Draft, totaled just three catches for 28 yards since Week 4, and it wasn’t because he was injured. White only connected with Moore twice on Sunday but they both explosive plays. One was a 42-yard catch-and-run in the second quarter and the other was on a key third-and-four in the third quarter with New York only ahead by 17-10. As White dropped back and drifted to his left, he found Moore breaking free near the goal line and led him for a 22-yard touchdown, Moore’s first of the season.
With the Jets, who are currently sitting in the AFC’s final wild card slot, actually about to play “meaningful games in December” for the first time in seven years, there can be no turning back to Wilson unless White gets injured (and even then it would be debatable whether Saleh goes with Wilson over QB2 Joe Flacco) or the team is mathematically eliminated from postseason play.
No need for Saleh to make the easy call look anything other than easy.