Mike White – August 8, 2023
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Tuesday, August 8, 2023
QB Mike White
(How does it ratchet up when you get to see another team here?) – “It’s nice. It’s a nice change of pace. It’s a team that although you haven’t seen them, and it’s not like in the season where you watch film and know what exactly you’re getting – it makes it a little challenging in that part – but it’s nice to face someone different who doesn’t know what you do. It’s cool. It heightens it and brings the competitive juices out cause you’re competing against another team, so it’s fun. It’s a nice change of pace.”
(So how did it go?) – “We had some good. We had some bad. I mean that’s going to be any practice. Nothing’s ever as good as it looks and nothing’s ever as bad as it looks but there’ll be some good stuff to learn off of the tape, I think, from all sides or all groups or whatever you want to call it. So yeah, just got to get in there, get better from it and build on it tomorrow.”
(You’ve been around this league a little bit now, I asked Head Coach Mike McDaniel have certain guys flashed. When you see some guys that have flashed that maybe you didn’t know about, what’s that like?) – “I think what we do a good job of here is a lot of guys get rotated in with different groups, which is nice so it’s not like I’m throwing to the same guys over and over and Tua (Tagovailoa) is throwing to the same guys and Skylar (Thompson) is throwing to the same guys. So we get we get to look at a bunch of different guys. I wouldn’t say anyone necessarily flashes because a lot of these guys have been doing it for a long time. I mean River (Cracraft) had a great play today on a what we call a YAC, the yards after catch angle, on a third down. Braxton (Berrios) had a bunch of third-down conversions. Tyreek (Hill) had a nice play-action up the seam. There’s a lot of guys who made a lot of good plays. There’s some good runs that might not look good to the untrained eye, but there was some really good stuff that our backs did. I think our front did a good job of handling different looks that, like I said we aren’t really watching game film all week of them like we would in a game. So I think a lot of guys handled that challenge well. Now it wasn’t all perfect by any means, so I’m not trying to try to say that we were lights out, but there was some good stuff I thought.”
(For our bookkeeping purposes, how far did you grow up from here?) – “Pembroke Pines. I live right now about five minutes from my house. It takes me 18 minutes, so 20 minutes from here – 20-21 minutes.”
(How often did you go to Hard Rock Stadium as a kid?) – “I went to the stadium a lot whether it was for the Dolphins or the Marlins. I was telling (Steve Goldstein) back when I went, it was Pro Player (Stadium). And then it went to Land Shark (Stadium) at one point and it just it’s been through a bunch of name changes. But I remember my very first memory was back when it was Pro Player. I remember going to games. Shoot, I remember going to Game 4 of the World Series when the Marlins were in it when Alex Gonzalez hit that home run. I remember going to, I can’t remember what week it was, but it was the winless year and we caught that one slant and broke it to the house vs. the Ravens to win our first game. I remember that game. I remember a ton of stuff. The Wildcat days with Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams. I remember it all.”
(On training camp here) – “It’s awesome. A nice change of pace.”
(As far as trash talkers, is there anyone who comes to mind as someone who…?) – “Christian Wilkins, and it’s nice he’s on my team now. I have to deal with it for about two to three more weeks till training camp is over, then I get to watch everybody else deal with it.”
(What was it like dealing with him when you were with the Jets?) – “So I didn’t play against him but I did hear him from the sideline, if that tells you how much of a trash talker he is. But he backs it up. So it’s not like one of those guys that loves to trash talk but kind of doesn’t show up. Christian shows up every game. You can’t really get annoyed with it because you got to respect it. He’s a hell of a player and we’ve seen it and that was probably a nice change of pace today is not going up against him seeing different d-linemen. But yeah, I would definitely say Christian Wilkins.”
(Is there a specific style he has?) – “I think that’s what makes him so great is he can change it up. He knows what works, what doesn’t work. I mean some days he can be like really, really nice and it kind of confuses you. Other days he can be all up on you and just trash talking and saying God knows what. But like I said, he backs it up and you got to respect it.”
(You mentioned WR Braxton Berrios. What is it about his game that makes him so tough to defend on third downs?) – “I mean the short-area quickness is so good by him and I think he does such a good job of making those one-step cuts and you can feel his body language and know when he’s leaning into someone, when he’s getting ready to break out and he has a really good feel for the zone looks as well. Man to man, he’s fast and he’s crafty so he’s going to beat you just off of pure speed a lot of the time, but it’s the zone looks that he knows when he needs to throttle down, when he needs to kind of lean into something. If it’s an out-breaker but it’s versus a cloud, he knows, ‘All right, I can break out but I don’t need to break out as fast. I can kind of throttle in that dead zone.’ There’s little stuff like that that makes him really, really fun to throw to.”
(Does he spend time with you and the quarterbacks alone because it sounds like the trust is there.) – “There is a lot of trust. You can just tell when you’re talking to him after a route, he understands. He thinks – he’ll even sometimes come up to us and say, ‘Hey, this is what I was thinking’. And nine times out of 10, it’s the right thing. So it’s a lot fun to play with him. Luckily, I’m going on year five watching him get some (opportunities).”
(Two things I was told about RB De’Von Achane today. One, he’s good in pass protection. I saw him pick up a linebacker. Two, he can run between the tackles despite his size. What have you observed?) – “Yeah, I think he’s very talented. I think you can see that from day one when he got here after rookie mini-camp. He’s athletically very gifted. And I think he’s starting to really learn the nuances of the program, like you said the pass pro, and running between the tackles. He’s not just a gadget-y speed guy. He can pick up a pro(tection), and that fires you up because that makes you want to get him the ball more as a quarterback. It’s a very selfless job picking up a linebacker full steam. So it’s a lot of fun to play with him. It’s a lot of fun to watch them grow. Now, he’s got a long way to go as we all do. I’m not trying to give him his flowers yet, but the progression that you’ve seen from him is really cool.”
(Does this offense have the same foundation as the Jets? Are there any similarities or differences?) – “The base stuff is very similar. There’s some differences formation motion wise. I think we push the ball downfield a lot more than my time in New York. And I think a lot of it, like I said before, has to do with personnel. I mean, we got obviously Tyreek (Hill), Jalen (Waddle) (Robbie) Chosen now, Braxton (Berrios) is pushing it downfield, Braylon (Sanders), ‘E’ (Erik Ezukanma). Like everybody can go. I think we’re lucky enough to have that so we can push the ball downfield more here.”
(Going back to you watching games here as a kid, have you played here?) – “I have not played. I’ve backed up Joe (Flacco) a couple of times. Last year I was hurt the last game of the year, so I didn’t play. But I have not taken a meaningful snap in the stadium yet.”
(Does that create any feelings for you?) – “Oh, 100 percent. I mean the stadium looks completely different though, so it won’t feel the same. There’s not a bunch of orange seats everywhere and there’s a nice little cover and there’s not a baseball field at the 30-yard line. But it’s still the same building. And it’s going to be a lot of fun. I mean, I’m sure I’m going to have tons of friends and family out there. I mean, too many to count but it’s going to be a lot a lot of fun.”
