A quarterback quest that began a year ago came to an official conclusion for the Edmonton Eskimos on Thursday, when the club announced it had signed Pat White.
White had a standout career with the West Virginia Mountaineers, suiting up from 2005 to 2008. He racked up 6,049 yards and 56 touchdowns and rushed for 4,480 yards on 684 carries for 47 touchdowns. His NFL career was slowed by a concussion and he was out of the league for three years before making a comeback bid a year ago.
That bid didn’t mesh with the Eskimos’ intentions to get him to the CFL last year (something that was detailed here), before general manager Ed Hervey had signed Mike Reilly. White signed with the Washington Redskins on April 2 last year and played well in a preseason game — he threw the game-winning two-point convert to lift Washington over Tennessee — but was waived on Sept. 14.
Now 28, White joins a packed Eskimos’ quarterback carousel that features Reilly, Matt Nichols, Jonathan Crompton and Jacory Harris. White hasn’t played a full season since his senior year at WVU, but those numbers and his athleticism (he signed a minor league contract with the Kansas City Royals in 2010) make him an intriguing CFL prospect.
The Washington Post’s Mark Maske took a long look at White after that preseason game in August. Some highlights from that story are below.
The version of White who played last Thursday night in Nashville, however, put more intriguing possibilities on display. He made the Redskins’ read-option offense — the one designed for starter Robert Griffin III and unveiled last season — work. He ran for 33 yards on five carries. He connected on 5 of 8 passes. He won the game with a nine-yard touchdown dash and two-point conversion completion to rookie tight end Emmanuel Ogbuehi.
It all came in a meaningless game against overmatched defenders who are unlikely to be in the NFL once the regular season arrives. He probably remains a long shot to be on the season-opening roster. Still, the performance sent many Redskins followers scurrying to social media sites and online message boards to call for White to unseat veteran 11th-year quarterback Rex Grossman as the team’s third stringer behind Griffin and Kirk Cousins.
In that story, quarterback coach George Whitfield Jr. spoke highly of White.
But Whitfield said he soon was struck by White’s humility. Whitfield had some initial reservations about mixing White with a class of younger, draft-eligible quarterbacks. But White, he said, became a teacher as well as a student. He stayed in San Diego for close to three months. He showed up to throw even on scheduled days off and, according to Whitfield, worked diligently on his fundamentals.
“All superheroes — and you look at what he did at West Virginia, and that’s what he was — need to acquire an engineering degree at some point,” Whitfield said.
White threw for NFL talent evaluators at the pro days of West Virginia and Virginia Tech. The San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants were among the teams to demonstrate interest, but White signed with the Redskins.
White’s name is one that CFL fans have thrown around in chat rooms and do-it-yourself negotiation lists for years. At the very least, Eskimos fans will get to see if the former college standout can make the transition to the Canadian game.
