4:15pm: Make that five broken ribs for White, who confirmed the total Friday (via NJ.com’s Andy Vasquez). Two-plus months from free agency, White said the injuries are not expected to be an issue for too long into the offseason.

10:24am: The Jets cleared Mike White for a Week 17 start in what became a do-or-die game. White struggled in a one-sided loss to the Seahawks, but his rib trouble became an issue early in that outing.

A hit near the end of the first half in the Jets’ 23-6 loss in Seattle provided a setback for White, and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports the veteran backup-turned-starter is dealing with four broken ribs (Twitter link). White had attempted to play through this issue this week, but Robert Saleh said an end-of-half blow became a major issue (via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com, on Twitter) henceforth. Set to close out his age-37 season, Joe Flacco will receive the call against the Dolphins.

White’s injury deteriorated throughout this week, Rapoport adds, nixing plans to start. The popular QB’s season will end early because of the injury that blunted his momentum. The Jets’ Week 17 loss eliminated them from playoff contention, providing little reason for them to trot out their preferred starter again. Barring a new contract, White is ticketed for free agency in March.

The Jets are not deviating from their latest plan to give Zach Wilson a reset. Wilson will again be inactive, with Saleh adding (via Cimini) the team is focusing on Wilson’s development for the 2023 season at this point. The former No. 2 overall pick has been twice removed from his starting role this season. After having been bumped to the backup gig following demotion No. 1, the erratic BYU product was inactive for Week 17. Wilson’s future with the Jets is up in the air, though the team continues to publicly convey long-term support. Wilson is signed through the 2024 season.

White’s clearance for Week 17 injected some hope into the Jets’ building after Wilson’s meltdown against the Jaguars, but the injury he suffered against the Bills weeks ago ended up being too much to overcome. He strung together back-to-back solid performances against the Bears and Vikings, but he will exit his contract year in need of more recovery time.

Flacco, who started over White in place of an injured Wilson during the season’s first three weeks, is also playing on an expiring contract. The Jets will end the season with Flacco and White each having started four games, with Wilson getting the call in the other nine. It can be safely assumed Saleh’s team, which improved significantly on defense this season, will be on the hunt for a veteran starter option this coming offseason.

The Jets’ playoff hopes have received a significant boost today. Quarterback Mike White has been medically cleared to return to game action in time for Week 17, and he will resume his role as the team’s starting quarterback (Twitter link via Brian Costello of the New York Post).

The news comes after White missed the past two games with multiple fractured ribs. He exited the Jets’ loss to the Bills on more than one occasion after taking significant hits, and was clearly playing through pain by the end of the contest. He underwent testing from numerous doctors in his push to return as quickly as possible, but ultimately missed the past two games while recovering.

That opened the door to Zach Wilson taking over the No. 1 role once again, after he had been benched in favor of White earlier in the year. The 2021 second overall pick delivered a better performance than most of his others during his brief NFL tenure in a 20-17 loss to the Lions in Week 15. However, he followed that up with a showing last Thursday which included 92 passing yards and an interception. Wilson was replaced by Chris Streveler midway through New York’s hugely underwhelming loss to Jacksonville, a result which put their playoff chances in significant jeopardy.

More importantly, it marked another missed opportunity for Wilson to establish himself as the franchise signal-caller he was drafted to become. That has led to recent reporting that the Jets could be looking to part ways with the BYU product this offseason, despite two years (with the potential of three, due to the fifth-year option) remaining on his rookie contract. Such a move would constitute an abject failure for all parties involved, given the draft capital New York invested in Wilson to provide them with long-term stability at the position.

As White earns his job back, Wilson will again drop to the No. 3 spot on the Jets’ depth chart. Same as it was in the weeks immediately following Wilson’s demotion, the second-year passer is set to be inactive going forward. Joe Flacco will back up White, CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones tweets. Barring injury, White is the starter for the rest of the season, Rich Cimini of ESPN.com tweets. Since his return from an August PCL injury, Wilson has gone from starter to third-stringer to second-stringer, back to starter and now back to the third-string depth chart slot.

Despite Wilson’s rough ride as Gang Green’s starter in his second season, Robert Saleh still places faith in his long-term value. The Jets are shutting him down again, and although Sunday’s report indicated this could be it for the ex-BYU starter in the Big Apple, Saleh is again attempting to soften the landing here.

“The plan for Zach hasn’t changed. I still think he has a future here,” Saleh said, via Cimini. “I still think he’s going to be a really good quarterback. He needs time to just kind of sit back and continue the development that we were trying re-kick start, if you will, after the New England game. We still have him in our future and in our plans.”

White flashed potential while filling in for an injured Wilson last season, and has likewise done enough in his three starts in 2022 to earn head coach Saleh’s trust in the final weeks of the season. The former Cowboys fifth-rounder has averaged just over 317 passing yards per game, though that figure has only resulted in three touchdown passes against a pair of interceptions. Still, the offense’s overall productivity with him under center makes the decision to go back to him as soon as possible an unsurprising one.

White is a pending free agent, something which, along with the uncertainty surrounding Wilson’s future in the Big Apple, leaves the quarterback position one filled with plenty of intrigue heading into 2023. In the immediate future, though, White will look to end the four-game losing streak which has the Jets currently sitting at 7-8. A Wild Card spot is still possible if he can regain the form he showed prior to the injury.

4:15pm: Given another chance to address this matter, Saleh is not committing to Wilson. The second-year Jets HC said (via the New York Post’s Brian Costello, on Twitter) the team is “keeping everything on the table” regarding their quarterback. Following a rough Wilson outing against the Patriots three weeks ago, Saleh said the plan was for the former No. 2 overall pick to start the rest of the season. With the Jets still contending for a playoff spot despite poor quarterback play, the team’s decision will obviously be one to monitor ahead of the team’s Week 12 game against the Bears.

While Wilson has been informed his job is not locked in any longer, Saleh did not indicate if either White or Joe Flacco would start if Wilson ended up being benched, Connor Hughes of SNY tweets. The Jets demoted Flacco, who remains their touchdown pass leader (with five) despite starting only three games this season, for White during Wilson’s latest run as their starter.

8:58am: During Sunday’s 10-3 loss to the Patriots, the Jets delivered one of their worst offensive performances in franchise history, once again leading to questions about their plans at the quarterback position moving forward. For at least one more week, though, no changes will be coming.

Zach Wilson completed just nine passes for 77 yards in the game, one in which the Jets mustered two yards of offense in the second half. As head coach Robert Saleh confirmed after the game, however, he did not consider benching the 23-year-old at any point during the contest. Moving on to backup Mike White under center is “the furthest thing from my mind,” Saleh added, via Zack Rosenblatt of The Athletic (subscription required).

Sunday marked the fourth time in 2022 that Wilson completed fewer than 60% of his passes and threw for less than 160 yards. Taking into account the three games he missed at the start of the season due to a knee injury, that represents an alarming lack of development for the second-year passer. Wilson’s three-interception performance in Week 8 against the Patriots raised questions about Wilson’s grip on the starting role, but Saleh backed the former No. 2 overall pick then as he is doing now. Support from within the team’s locker room appears to dwindling, though.

Rookie wideout Garrett Wilson was among the most vocal players to voice their frustrations in the immediate aftermath of the loss. He stopped short of naming any one player or coach individually, but said that the staff “ha[s] to put more trust in the receiver room” to improve offensively.

“It starts in practice,” he added, via ESPN’s Rich Cimini. “It’s got to be better, the things we see and don’t call out. It has to start getting called out. This is unacceptable. No one wants to feel like this, but that’s not enough… Hopefully, this is a wake-up for some people in the facility… to get on their details.”

Zach Wilson added further to the frustration with his performance when speaking after the game. He laid a much smaller portion of the blame on himself than expected, adding that he did not feel he and the offense let the rest of the team down. Per Cimini, there remain some “raw feelings” amongst New York’s defensive players, and Wilson’s lack of contrition “didn’t sit well” (Twitter link).

At 6-4, the Jets are now at the bottom of the AFC East. Their playoff hopes are still very much alive given the parity in their division and most of the AFC, but the QB position will remain under intense scrutiny in the coming days and weeks barring significant improvement.