Mike White: If you ask me, I should have been a first overall pick

It took Jets quarterback Mike White a long time to be an overnight success. He transferred from South Florida to Western Kentucky, was a fifth-round pick of the Cowboys in 2018, and never got on the field in a regular-season game until 2021, when he came in for an injured Zach Wilson and had a huge game in his first start.

As White prepares to start again on Sunday for the Jets against the Bills, he says he doesn’t know why NFL teams didn’t believe in him as a starting quarterback, but he always believed in himself.

“I couldn’t tell you. That’s definitely the scouting departments across the league and what their interpretation of me is,” White said. “I have 100 percent confidence in myself. So if you ask me, I should have been a first overall pick. But that’s neither here nor there. That’s four years ago. I try to get my mind off that and be in the here and now and execute what my job is right now.”

White has looked a lot better this season than Wilson, the second overall pick in this year’s draft. Whether White can keep it up remains to be seen, but so far he’s playing like a player who has every right to ooze self confidence.