Bills secondary gleeful at Jets’ expense: ‘Thank you, Mike White’

There were no chants for Mike White this week, but there was appreciation — from the other team. 

The Bills — and certainly their fans — were thrilled with his performance, particularly safety Jordan Poyer. 

Poyer was worried he was going to be left out, as the only member of the Bills’ secondary not to produce a turnover. 

But late in the third quarter of the rout, Poyer picked off White, capping the 45-17 bludgeoning of the Jets at MetLife Stadium. 

“Thank you, Mike White, for giving us five,” Poyer said with a smile. 

Two weeks after White threw for 405 yards and three touchdown passes in a dramatic win over the Bengals, the Bills provided him with a dose of reality. They picked him off four times and sacked him once in a dominant defensive performance. Poyer, Levi Wallace, Taron Johnson and Tre’Davious White each had interceptions and Micah Hyde forced and recovered a Corey Davis fumble with 26 seconds left in the first half that erased the Jets’ chances of adding at least a field goal before intermission. 

The Bills didn’t do anything special against White. Their game plan was to make the Jets one-dimensional by shutting down the running game and throwing different coverages at the inexperienced quarterback to confuse him. Facing an early deficit, the Jets had to go to the air frequently, and White was off-target, forcing throws that weren’t there. 

“With a guy that doesn’t have a ton of experience playing against defenses in this league, you want to try to mix it up, make it sticky for him,” Hyde said. “Putting them in passing situations and letting our guys up front go eat and our guys on the back end lock up and try to get tight coverage on their receivers, we knew if we were able to do that it was going to be a good day for us.” 

During the game, Hyde said he joked with Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier about each member of the secondary recording a turnover and whether that had happened before. 

“[I know it wasn’t] the ’85 Bears,” Hyde told him. 

Frazier, a member of that legendary defense, found it funny. It was an amusing day for the Bills and their secondary. 

“I don’t know how many teams have done that, to be honest,” Wallace said. “That’s crazy to happen. We’re still processing it. It’s kind of surreal. We had a good time.”