You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who had a more impressive season debut than Jordan Whitehead. Not exactly known for being a ball-hawking safety, the 26-year-old Whitehead struggled in his first season in Green and White.
Coming over from Tampa Bay in free agency, Whitehead never truly emerged as the anchor of Gang Green’s defensive secondary. While New York’s cornerback play between that of Sauce Gardner, D.J. Reed, and Michael Carter II was on another level, the play from the safeties, including Whitehead, left a lot to be desired.
But it appears that Whitehead put in the necessary work this offseason, as he intercepted Josh Allen on three occasions during Monday night’s 22-16 win over the Buffalo Bills. Coming into Week 1, Whitehead has never had more than two interceptions in a single season and never had more than one interception in a single game. That changed on Monday.
Another change according to ESPN’s Field Yates, is that Whitehead is $250,000 richer after Monday’s win. It’s very rare that a player hits an incentive in Week 1 of the regular season, but Whitehead had a clause in his contract that was tied to having three interceptions over the course of a 17-game schedule.
It’s insane that he reached that mark in one game, but give him a lot of credit. Whitehead had just two interceptions all of last season. Now he has three.
“Something like this, you got to talk about it, you got to talk about it during the week, believe that you’re going to do it,” Whitehead said, via Zach Braziller of the New York Post. “That’s where it comes from.”
[Zach Braziller, Field Yates via Pro Football Talk]
