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It was fun while it lasted.
And now it is time to give the football, and the future, back to Zach Wilson.
The air came out of whatever hot air balloon Mike White had been sailing in on Cloud 5 in a humiliating 45-17 loss to the Bills.
Chances are he would not have thrown four interceptions if he had been lucky enough to fire away against the Jets’ secondary, but he wasn’t, and he did.
And there went the idea that Zach Wilson would benefit from watching Mike White run Mike LaFleur’s offense, because on this day, you sort of hoped that Wilson wasn’t watching at all.
If Wilson (knee) is healthy, the sooner Robert Saleh can continue the kid’s development, the better.
Because he has missed three games now and he will have to play catch-up to several of his fellow members of the Quarterback Class of 2022:
Mac Jones threw three touchdown passes and finished with a 142.1 rating against the Browns on Sunday. It is way early, but he has the look of a quarterback who could haunt the Jets for a decade or two.
Justin Fields has grown dramatically over the past several weeks.
Trevor Lawrence is getting his growing pains out of the way week by week.
Mike White (33.4 rating) was not the only reason why the Jets didn’t belong on the same field as the Bills. But he gave Jets fans no reason to serenade him with “Mike White! Mike White! Mike White!” Jets fans had their Mike White fix. He gave them no chance to win.
If Wilson is healthy next Sunday against the Dolphins, it’s time to see exactly what he has learned about playing quarterback in the NFL.
It is always possible, of course, but the chances of “We Want Mike” chants once Wilson throws a pick just went down considerably.
White versus Sean McDermott and Leslie Frazier and all those dogs on the Bills’ defense was never a fair fight from the beginning:
On White’s first pass, A.J. Klein dropped an interception.
On his next series, he was hit by Efe Obada and intercepted by Taron Johnson.
If it wasn’t a bad throw, it was a bad decision. It would get worse before it got better, too.
At one point in the first half, White had completed six passes to running backs, but only three to his wide receivers for 13 yards. One drive was sabotaged by a first-down holding penalty, another on a delay of game on fourth-and-1 at the Buffalo 44, another by a Corey Davis fumble at the end of the half following a 28-yard completion.
He had made a living taking what the defenses gave him, but this defense gave him nothing virtually all day.
“They definitely attached to our underneath stuff, kinda made us earn it down the field on tight-window throws,” White said. “You gotta in-game be able to see what they were doing and know that, to be able to identify it and attack it.”
He and LaFleur could not, did not.
“They did a good job of not showing any tendencies and in mixing up coverages,” White said.
The irony is Mike White betrayed the boring football mantra with a hero ball throw for Elijah Moore that became Tre’Davious White’s interception. Mike White’s first of three in the third quarter.
“The deep one to Elijah, I just got a little too aggressive,” White said, “instead of just taking what they gave me.”
It was Bills 24, Jets 3 at the time and this was the interception that bothered him most.
“It becomes tough in this league when you have to become one-dimensional,” White said. “I think a lot of that is my decision-making, I need to be able to not get so aggressive and think we can score it all in one play with the deep throw to Elijah.”
The kid is all class, isn’t he?
“It’s on you to be the decision-maker and be the cool, calm collected guy,” White said, “and I think I just got a little too aggressive on a couple of plays.”
With 4:53 remaining, he trudged to the medical tent following a hit by A.J. Epenesa. He was cleared to return, but Joe Flacco got to enjoy garbage time — which had begun early in the third quarter.
White was asked how he would feel if Saleh went back to Zach Wilson as the starter.
“I’ll support him just like I did the first couple of weeks of the season,” he said. “I want to see him do well. He’s a good kid and he’s been working his butt off at his rehab and in staying engaged and coming to meetings and staying engaged on the field when he wasn’t able to practice. Like I’ve said earlier, whatever my job is, I’m gonna do that to the best of my ability — 100 percent.”
Saleh had told everyone that the quarterback situation would sort itself out organically. White has shown enough to make you believe he can play in this league. But Saleh shouldn’t have to fret about a quarterback controversy. Zach Wilson is the future. The future is now.
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