Will Mike White join the ranks of unheralded backup QBs who became No. 1s?
Mike White of the Jets reacts after defeating the Bengals at MetLife Stadium on Oct. 31, 2021 . Credit: Jim McIsaac
INDIANAPOLIS — There could not have been a better opening act for Mike White’s career as a starting NFL quarterback. He threw for 405 yards and three touchdowns, he earned AFC Offensive Player of the Week honors, his jersey and a game ball were put on display in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Oh, and he won the game, as White pulled off a major upset of the resurgent Bengals before a Jets crowd at MetLife Stadium that has been woefully short on things to cheer about in recent years.
All things being equal, however, White will eventually be back on the sideline with a headset and clipboard once Zach Wilson is ready to return from a knee injury. This is still Wilson’s team, and the No. 2 overall draft pick will be given every opportunity moving forward to develop into the team’s franchise quarterback over the coming decade. Even if White can somehow convince coach Robert Saleh that he should be given more extensive work in the near term.
But stranger things have happened over the course of NFL history, and there is at least the possibility that this will become an awkward situation over time. Awkward in the sense that the Jets might have to give serious consideration to a player drafted in the fifth round by the Cowboys in 2018, hung around on the Jets’ practice squad in 2019 and then bounced back and forth between the practice squad and the active roster as a backup in 2020.
Go back two-plus decades ago to Washington and recall that Heath Shuler was considered a virtual can’t-miss prospect in the 1994 draft, when he was the No. 3 overall pick out of Tennessee. In that same draft, Washington took a little-known quarterback, Gus Frerotte, out of Tulsa in the seventh round to develop as a backup behind Shuler. Frerotte eventually overtook Shuler, who simply didn’t develop the way the team had hoped, and Washington fans were resoundingly in favor of the move.
Frerotte did a solid if unspectacular job as the starter, although his career began to unravel shortly after one of the most ill-fated celebrations imaginable. After he rushed for the team’s only touchdown in a 7-7 tie against the Giants in a Monday Night Football game in 1997, he ran toward the stands and head-butted the wall at then-Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, which is now FedEx Field. Frerotte sprained his neck, didn’t come out for the second half and spent most of the remaining years of his career as a backup.
It was in Washington in 2012 that Robert Griffin III was the target of a dramatic trade up the draft board, as Mike Shanahan made the move to take the Baylor quarterback with the second overall pick. The same year, Shanahan selected Kirk Cousins in the fourth round to serve as Griffin’s backup.
Griffin was outstanding as a rookie, leading his team to the playoffs before suffering torn knee ligaments in a playoff loss to the Seahawks. Griffin would never be the same quarterback, and Cousins eventually moved into the starting job, parlaying that move into a $90 million free-agent deal with the Vikings, where he still starts.
And, of course, there is the greatest come-from-out-of-nowhere quarterback story of all, when Patriots starter Drew Bledsoe suffered a rib injury and a punctured lung after being hit by Jets linebacker Mo Lewis in Week 2 of the 2001 season. Little known backup Tom Brady, a sixth-round draft pick out of Michigan in 2000, took over for Bledsoe.
And football history was never the same.
At age 44 and defending his record seventh Super Bowl title, Brady shows no signs of slowing down.
I think it’s safe to say that White is not the next Brady. Nor is anyone, for that matter. The most accomplished player the NFL has ever seen — and may ever see — is simply in a class by himself.
But give White credit. He took advantage of his opportunity in the best way possible, and at least gave himself a chance to be something more than just a low-cost insurance policy for Wilson. The Jets are still banking on Wilson as their quarterback of the future, but White hopes his quest to at least be the team’s quarterback of the present and perhaps the near future will continue just a little longer.
Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”
