Mike White will start against the Buffalo Bills. Robert Saleh’s press conference today centered around the QB position. The Q & A appears below and here is a quick injury update.<\/p>\n
Injuries real quick: (Tevin) Coleman, (Corey) Davis, (Shaq) Lawson, (Alijah) Vera-Tucker and (Zach) Wilson, they\u2019ll all be limited in practice today. Coleman has a hammy, Davis has a hip, Shaq Lawson has a hamstring, Vera-Tucker is dealing with a sprained toe, but he should be good. And then, Zach, obviously, with the knee.<\/p>\n
Starting quarterback?<\/strong><\/p>\n Mike is starting, Mike White.<\/p>\n We had a feeling on Monday with Zach\u2019s knee that he\u2019s not fully ready to go. Mike, obviously, got all his strength back. He feels good, no residual effects from Thursday, so we\u2019re going with Mike.<\/p>\n With Zach not all the way back, could that potentially linger into next week as well? Or do you guys feel really confident about next week?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ll see. It is a two-to-four-week injury, obviously. He\u2019s trending in the right direction. We\u2019ll see how he practices this week, which was always the goal, and see how he feels coming out of this week.<\/p>\n What will he do, Robert, in practice? Zach?<\/strong><\/p>\n Everything. Individual, he\u2019s going to run the show team, he\u2019ll take reps with the offense, basically a normal practice for him.<\/p>\n Will he be activated? Will he be your backup this week, or do you just have to wait to see?<\/strong><\/p>\n Probably going to roll with Joe Flacco on this one.<\/p>\n Why Flacco over Josh (Johnson), considering Josh played so well?<\/strong><\/p>\n So, Josh, he\u2019s been elevated from practice squad twice already. We\u2019re dealing with a whole ton of injuries, so being able to get him to the 53, there\u2019s a numbers game. And so, with Joe, it\u2019s basically giving him an opportunity, too, and he is ready to go. He\u2019s been studying his butt off for the past couple of weeks.<\/p>\n Do you feel like things will sort themselves out in terms of the quarterback, longer term, two-three weeks that you\u2019ll know what to do and you\u2019ll know what\u2019s right? Or might things get a little weird if Mike continues to do well and Zach is ready?<\/strong><\/p>\n So, I think it\u2019s going to happen organically. If Mike does phenomenal like we think he\u2019s going to do, that\u2019s not weird, that\u2019s awesome to me, in the sense that quarterback is a precious commodity in this league, and we feel like we\u2019ve got four really good ones. To answer your question, I think it\u2019ll all take care of itself, we just have to let it play out.<\/p>\n How do you handle that in terms of, everything has been about Zach for the most part, his development. But if Mike gives you the best chance to win, how do you handle that going forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n First, you handle the things you\u2019ve got control over and you just have to be cognizant of the entire organization. Joe (Douglas) and myself are committed to doing whatever is best for this entire organization and that includes every player in this organization. There\u2019s always that commitment. There are 52 players on the roster, or 51 other players on the roster, and then practice squad and all that stuff. So, always sitting down, taking a deep breath, ignore all the outside noise and make the decision that\u2019s best for the organization moving forward and the development of the entire team.<\/p>\n You said it\u2019s going to happen organically. In the NFL, there\u2019s always different shades of gray, it\u2019s never really cut and dry. So, by leaving it open ended with Zach, don\u2019t you think you\u2019re inviting some speculation if Mike continues to play well?<\/strong><\/p>\n No, because it\u2019s the same thing. If Mike is playing phenomenal football, it is what it is. You might call it a controversy or not, but I think I can pull up an article on every single one of you guys that has mentioned that the best thing for a young quarterback is to watch. So, there\u2019s no harm in either way. We have the utmost confidence in Zach when he gets ready to play and he gets back on the football field that he\u2019s going to do a phenomenal job. His talent is undeniable. There is a great amount of growth that can happen, whether he\u2019s playing or not. Those are facts. Those are history proven throughout the history of time. Playing or not playing, you can get both done. At the end of the day, it comes down to what\u2019s best for the organization and the team. That, I\u2019m very confident will happen organically.<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t that a complete reversal though, Robert, from what you guys have said since April, where Zach was going to be the guy. You walked in the door, and he was the guy, because you wanted to play him. You thought playing him was the way to get him experience. So is it saying now that watching him benefits?<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s value in both. And I\u2019ve always stood by that. There\u2019s always going to be value in both. But you also don\u2019t want to force one over the other. Mike has done a phenomenal job in presenting the ability where you\u2019re getting good football out of the quarterback. So, it\u2019d be one thing if you were throwing out a quarterback and he was just playing terrible and there\u2019s nothing to learn from. It\u2019s another thing when there\u2019s a quarterback that\u2019s giving you a clear blueprint on how this offense is supposed to be run in that regard. So, absolutely do I think that playing and getting those reps, absolutely. Do I think watching good ball is vital, absolutely. So, it goes back to the old saying, if you\u2019re a golfer and you\u2019re watching a bad golf swing during the course of the round, your swing is going to continuously get worse. So look away from the bad golfer. It\u2019s the same thing. So, we feel like Mike has proven throughout OTAs and training camp that he\u2019s capable. Did a wonderful job during the game, did a wonderful job in the first quarter of that Indianapolis game. So, he\u2019s putting on good tape, so there\u2019s also that obligation. If he\u2019s playing well and he\u2019s doing the things that he needs to do to give him that opportunity to continue on that.<\/p>\n When we talked on Monday, it was, \u2018When Zach\u2019s healthy, Zach is going to play.\u2019 Now it seems like it\u2019s more open.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m staying day-to-day on it. I\u2019ll just cut it at that.<\/p>\n Zach, has he been sitting next to Mike (LaFleur) in the booth during the games?<\/strong><\/p>\n No, he was on the field in Indianapolis. They were all on the field in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n (follow up) He\u2019s just monitoring or listening in?<\/strong><\/p>\n Listening in.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mike White will start against the Buffalo Bills. Robert Saleh’s press conference today centered around the QB position. The Q & A appears below and here is a quick injury update. Injuries real quick: (Tevin) Coleman, (Corey) Davis, (Shaq) Lawson, (Alijah) Vera-Tucker and (Zach) Wilson, they\u2019ll all be limited in practice today. Coleman has a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":57332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,213],"tags":[2858,3293],"class_list":{"0":"post-57397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-injury-report","8":"category-jet-news","9":"tag-mike-white","10":"tag-zach-wilson"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Mike-White.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-eVL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57398,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57397\/revisions\/57398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}