How Tre'Davious White was a difference-maker in Bills' win over Jaguars
It was veteran cornerback Tre’Davious White who tipped the ball toward Cole Bishop, the second-year safety who intercepted it. The takeaway, with 59 seconds left, allowed the Buffalo Bills to kneel out the 27-24 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Cole Bishop walked back to his locker after the Buffalo Bills' AFC wild-card playoff game, and before he even got there, he turned to the player next to him.
“Tre, thank you,” Bishop said. “I owe you.”
It was veteran cornerback Tre’Davious White who tipped the ball toward Bishop, the second-year safety who intercepted it. The takeaway, with 59 seconds left, allowed the Bills to kneel out the 27-24 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday in EverBank Stadium.
“Game over,” White said. “I told (Cole), ‘Get down! Get down; don’t try to run a touchdown – get down, so we can just go onto the next game.'”
The next game, of course, is in the AFC divisional round, thanks to the Bills' first postseason road victory in 33 years. And to help them get there, White turned in a stellar performance, with a pair of tackles and three timely pass breakups.
Bills cornerback Tre'Davious White breaks up a pass intended for Jaguars tight end Brenton Strange during the second half of Sunday's AFC wild card playoff game.
Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
Bills coach Sean McDermott found the game-changing tipped interception to be poetic – a bridge between old and young. For White, Sunday’s win had tinges of a full-circle moment, with the caveat that there is still more to go.
White was the first draft pick of the McDermott era in 2017. It was his rookie season in which the Bills broke their 17-year postseason drought, only to lose 10-3 to the Jaguars on the road. White reminisced on that game this week, and how the Bills have evolved since.
“Like I’ve been saying for weeks, we’re calloused as a team,” White said.
But what about White’s own callouses?
The torn ACL. The ruptured Achilles tendon. The dark moments of recovery. He was cut by the team that drafted him. Traded by the Rams. Caught on with the Ravens last year, only to lose in the playoffs to a familiar team – the Bills.
White’s return to the Bills this offseason seemed to be a nice reunion for a fan base and an organization that had missed his vibrant personality. But the opportunity was also available because of how much White has overcome, and how much he continued to push through once back.
White was supposed to be something of an insurance policy, as the Bills drafted Maxwell Hairston in the first round and continued to tinker with the injury-riddled secondary all season.
White missed the season opener against Baltimore, and in the following weeks, he didn't look like his old self.
“When he came back, he still wasn't really Tre because he was working through two major injuries, and yet in Tre's fashion, there's nobody that works harder, and he's gotten himself back now to where he's playing really good football,” McDermott said.
“Credit to him and the work that he's put in and our medical team as well. Just overall, he's just as good as there is in terms of his determination, his heart and his resilient nature.”
His teammates see all the work he’s put in, too. He finished the regular season with 40 tackles, one interception and a team-high 10 pass breakups.
“He needs to be Comeback Player of the Year, to be honest,” cornerback Christian Benford said.
But White said he isn’t thinking about himself in these big moments.
“I mean, we gotta keep on going,” White said. “I can’t worry about my individual accolades or individual things. This is a team sport. We’re trying to win a Super Bowl, which is a team goal – ultimate team goal. And I just think if I continue to do my one-11th, that’ll help this team out to get where we need to be.”
White’s performance took on added importance with the Bills being thin at the cornerback position. Rookie Maxwell Hairston, who has rotated drives with White when healthy this season, was sidelined with an ankle injury.
The Bills’ usage of veteran defenders – borne more out of necessity than nostalgia – has earned the team and its general manager, Brandon Beane, some questioning. But White improved as the season has progressed. And on Sunday, his big plays weren’t limited to the end of the game.
In the third quarter, he had two pass breakups in three snaps. In both cases, quarterback Trevor Lawrence was looking for Jaguars tight end Brenton Strange, but White was there to make a play.
“We were just in a zone coverage for the first two, and I just got a good read on the quarterback,” White said. “Broke on the ball, just believed in what I saw from film study.”
On the second pass breakup, White nearly intercepted it, running with his head in his hands in frustration after the play.
“I was mad at myself,” White said. “Because ultimately, they still scored. They scored a field goal. But if I take the ball away right there and catch it, they get nothing. So, I mean, next time: ‘Just come down with the ball, Tre.’ I wanna catch it, so I’ll be on the JUGS (machine) a little extra this week, for sure.”
That White left Sunday’s game thinking he had more work to do is a reflection of the work ethic that put him in position to make those plays in the game in the first place.
“So the intangibles, right?” McDermott said of White. “You can build a team with said people and this and that, but it's about intangibles and toughness and how those intangibles and toughness fit into an overall vision for a team and the culture of the team.
“There's, in my estimation, no substitute for toughness.”
A mentally and physically tough White said he's ready for whatever the playoffs bring next. After all, he still thinks he has room to grow.
“Hopefully, this is a momentum-builder for me,” White said.