Not if he lines up at WR.
He has yet to really even work as a WR. Before he was drafted, he said he hadn't played any WR in 6 years...basically since he was halfway through high school. During all of their practices so far, White has been working with the QB unit, not the WR unit.
At some point we should stop outfoxing ourselves. He could get a little time at slot WR but he's not dangerous enough there to pose any problems. He barely knows the first thing about running the route tree and the Dolphins aren't exactly giving him a 'crash course' in that area while they have him throw footballs with the QB unit and be in the meeting rooms with the QBs all the time.
The problem that Dr. Phin brings up is a real problem, but maybe a little overstated. Teams could have easily seen that Miami had Wildcat personnel in the football game any time we had Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown on the field at the same time. A lot of Miami's Wildcat plays saw Ricky Williams, Ronnie Brown AND Patrick Cobbs on the field at the same time...and if a 3-HB personnel package doesn't scream "Wildcat" then I don't know what does. So teams could already tell by the personnel package that we were putting the Wildcat on the field.
The key is what else you can do with those personnel packages. For instance, with the 2-HB and 3-HB formations, I remember back in 2005 when Miami under Nick Saban would go into those Ricky & Ronnie formations (they called it 'hippo') and defenses considered that a PASSING formation. Does anyone remember the interception that cost us the Falcons game at the end? Remember after the game when the Falcons defenders felt they had the jump on our play calling because they figured out through film study that when we went into a 2-HB personnel package, it was a pass play something like 80-90% of the time? I remember that. I also remember Dick Vermeil saying that whenever a team sent out two halfbacks, defenses would just send out their nickel personnel because unless one of those two halfbacks could legitimately lead block, it is not a strong running personnel group. It's a stronger passing personnel group.
Miami didn't do a good job of selling the run out of the 2-HB personnel grouping. They were able to execute some successful '90 Flip' type plays (fake to the upback, toss sweep to the halfback)...but that wasn't enough. This is where the Wildcat sort of stood the NFL on its head a little bit. They turned dual and even triple halfback personnel groupings into POWER running...with mismatches to boot. If Dick Vermeil was still coaching and saw Ricky and Ronnie coming onto the field at the same time, he could go ahead and send his nickel personnel out there, but then Miami goes Wildcat and cuts through it like a hot knife through butter. On the other hand, if you swing the other way on defense, let's say every time you saw Ricky and Ronnie on the field together you sent out 3 safeties and 1 corner...or an extra linebacker, something like that...then Miami can just line up with Pennington in the gun, Ricky and Ronnie in the slots, and whoops...they've got a strong pass grouping against your weak pass defense grouping.
So anyway, back to Pat White. He's working as a QB. It seems natural that to get the best ambiguity in the personnel packages, Pat White should be working as a WR. That way, he comes on the field, and Miami could be trying to pass the ball normally with White in the slot. But I personally think that somewhere along the way, Miami realized that this is a guy that hasn't played WR in 6 years...that doesn't have 4.4 speed, that doesn't have awesome agility drills, and has truly untested hands.
Is he a more compelling WR, or is he a more compelling dropback QB?
That's your question. My answer is by far he is a more compelling dropback QB. He's got skills that translate at that position, he has physical ability in his feet that is rare for that position, he has field awareness, presence, leadership, an awareness of downs and distances, quarter, score, everything that Pennington always preaches. He has good mechanics and drops a very pretty deep ball. He has some accuracy, maybe not Pennington accuracy but he does have accuracy.
What does he have that makes him a compelling WR? No experience. Untested hands. Average speed. Below average agility. Average size.
So if you're trying to make him amphibious...does it make more sense to make him a cross between a WR and a Wildcat QB? Or does it make more sense to make him a cross between a QB and a Wildcat QB?
I think it's the latter, and that is why they're working him at the QB position and not the WR position. I think that when he comes on the field, if defenses start to place a "Wildcat" personnel package on the field, Miami will poke and prod that defensive personnel grouping for any weakness to their NORMAL passing and running attack. If the defense tosses out a specialized Wildcat personnel grouping because Pat White is on the field, what happens when White just lines up under Center and hands the ball off to Ronnie Brown on a stretch or power run play? What happens when Pat White goes shotgun empty backfield and starts passing it to the slot guys? Is Ted Ginn now single covered on the deep vertical?
Personally, I think teams will want to test Pat White as a Wildcat QB first. Let him run those Wildcat plays and see if he can be as effective a runner as Ronnie Brown was. Don't send out special personnel or anything like that. Don't crowd 11 men toward the line of scrimmage. See if Pat can run the ball like Ricky and Ronnie did, and don't let him have the easy pass. If THAT is successful, THEN you as a defense have problems. But it all starts there.