Tre’Davious White is more focused on ending the Bills 17-year playoff drought, but his play on the field has made him a favorite for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.
Buffalo Bills Insider Chris Brown provides the details. Here is his report:
He admits his competition with a fellow NFL rookie cornerback began last winter. It was at the EXOS training facility in Phoenix where Tre’Davious White and Marshon Lattimore would engage in daily activities trying to one up the other. Now with two weeks left in the regular season they appear to be the top two horses in the race for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.
“Me and Marshon text almost every day,” said White. “We worked out at EXOS together all offseason. He’s a guy I talked to a lot. He texted me before they played the Falcons and he was asking me what I thought about Julio (Jones) and any notes I had on him from when we played him in Week 4. We talk about that and life outside of football. He’s one of the guys that I’m close to.”
Lattimore however, is worried he hasn’t been on the field enough this season to contend with White, who has played in 953 snaps on defense with two games still to play.
“I think he was injured for two weeks and I ended up getting an interception in two straight weeks,” said White of Lattimore. “He texted me and said, ‘Man can you chill out? I have to get back on the field before you run away with this thing.’”
It would be hard to argue that any defensive rookie has had the impact on his team that White has for the Bills.
“I know what he does for us. Down in and down out what he brings to the table,” said Bills head coach Sean McDermott. “I’ve been thoroughly impressed. I don’t think there’s a guy I’ve been around at that position in particular, who has had that kind of contribution to a team and a defense as early as Tre’Davious has for us. The great part is that he continues to work on his craft every week to get better. I’ve just been impressed overall with his maturity from a football standpoint and then off the field as well.
“I think he’s as good as anyone out there from a rookie standpoint. He’s a legitimate candidate for Defensive Rookie of the Year. He’s had a nice year.”
Currently second in the league in pass breakups with 18 and tied for fourth amongst cornerbacks with four interceptions, White has the playmaking numbers to vie for Defensive Rookie of the Year honors.
But even more impressive is a lot of his big plays have come at the most crucial points of the game this season.
In Week 4, down 10-7 on the road at Atlanta in the third quarter, White scooped up a forced fumble and ran 52 yards for a touchdown. The score put the Bills ahead to stay in a 23-17 upset victory.
Two weeks later after Buffalo’s offense tied the game with Tampa Bay at 27 with 2:28 to play, White forced an Adam Humphries fumble on the ensuing Tampa possession at the Buccaneers 33-yard line and recovered the loose ball.
Seven plays later Stephen Hauschka kicked the game-winning field goal with 14 seconds remaining.
In Week 12, Buffalo was clinging to a precarious six-point lead (16-10) at Arrowhead against the Chiefs. With 1:25 left in regulation, Kansas City was driving, when on 3rd-and-8 from the Bills 38-yard line, White picked off an Alex Smith pass for a game-clinching interception.
White repeated the feat in Week 15 against the division rival Dolphins.
Miami had just made it a one-score game (24-16) and successfully recovered an onside kick. But on the first play from scrimmage, White picked off a Jay Cutler pass intended for Devante Parker to seal another victory for Buffalo.
“Coach Frazier does a great job of emphasizing taking the ball away,” said White of his defensive coordinator. “He puts up on the board every weekend, if we’re a plus-two in the turnover differential, your chances of winning are 80 percent. And if you take it away three times your chances are 90 percent.
“That’s how it goes each and every week. That’s what we hone in on and in practice we go after it and try to punch the ball out. We try to intercept every ball. Every ball in the air is ours. So we practice that way, so when we get on the game field it’s not a surprise.”
What has been a surprise is how quickly White has not only adapted to the NFL game, but excelled.
“Going back to OTAs, we were all very impressed at his maturity early on; the way he was able to gather information and then take it to the field once we could go onto the field, and then be able to execute his assignments as well as he did,” said Frazier. “To see him in training camp and the preseason games, to see that the game wasn’t too big for him early on it was evident to us that this guy could handle it, and we made a decision pretty early that he was going to be a starting corner for us.
“We’ve been impressed all along with his maturity, his ability to be able to have a short memory, which you have to have at that position, and the mental toughness that’s necessary to succeed out there. The more plays he makes, the more confidence he’s going to gather. We’re really encouraged by his play. There are signs that he’s going to be a really good player in our league for a long time.”
And as much as White would love to win the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award, the cornerback sees a much bigger prize there for the taking.
“Those individual awards are great, but ultimately for us to end that 17-year streak, that’d be big,” said White of Buffalo’s playoff drought. “That would boost my stock a little more because of how historic that would be.”