The Jets made a big hire last Thursday when coach Robert Saleh picked Nathaniel Hackett to be his new offensive coordinator.
The reaction to the Hackett hire was unusual because it was all about who might come with him — Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers — but there was not much analysis of the hire itself.
Can Hackett … hack it? Is this an upgrade over Mike LaFleur? Can the Jets offense not drag the team down in 2023?
Obviously, the connection between Hackett and Rodgers was the headline last week. But let’s dig a little deeper on the Hackett hire with three reasons to like the move and three reasons to question it.
Three reasons to hope
1. I think a coach like Hackett was about as good as Saleh was going to do after dumping LaFleur. The Jets knew that this job would not lure the top candidates. The team has a big question mark at quarterback and the coaching staff does not have much job security. Any coach with options was not going to look at the Jets.
That left coaches in two categories: first-time play-callers and retreads who washed out somewhere else.
The Jets could not go down the rookie play-caller road again after just failing with LaFleur in that situation. The Jets are going to have a new quarterback, a revamped offensive line and some young skill players. They needed an experienced hand at offensive coordinator. Hackett has been either a coordinator or head coach for nine seasons. Good or bad, that’s a lot of experience.
Hackett’s system also is similar to LaFleur’s, so there should be some crossover for the returning players.
2. One thing Saleh was looking for was a coordinator who could put a run game together. That was one area where LaFleur struggled. The Jets never consistently found a running game after Breece Hall was injured.
Hackett has had three top-10 rushing attacks — one in each of three different stops. That includes the 2017 Jaguars, who had the No. 1 rushing offense behind Leonard Fournette.
Saleh also hired Keith Carter to be the offensive line coach and run game coordinator. Carter spent the past five years with the Titans overseeing their run game. He did not bring Derrick Henry with him, but he will work closely with Hackett to get the running game going.
The Jets are expected to scale back the number of running plays they have and try to perfect a smaller number of plays. There was a feeling inside the Jets that they had too many running plays, particularly after injuries started to mount with Hall and the offensive line.
3. Even if Rodgers does not end up on the Jets, his relationship with Hackett gives the new offensive coordinator instant credibility with players. In particular, it should help with Zach Wilson, who idolizes Rodgers. One of Hackett’s duties is to try to fix Wilson. He should be more receptive to Hackett’s coaching with the endorsement from Rodgers.
Three reasons to mope
1. The numbers are not that impressive for Hackett’s nine years of running offenses. He has overseen a top-10 offense three times, and two of those were with Rodgers at quarterback and Matt LaFleur calling the plays. His offenses have finished in the bottom 10 of both yards and points per game three times.
The Jets point out that Hackett did not have an elite quarterback outside of the years with Rodgers. Russell Wilson certainly did not look like one last year in Denver, and before that he worked with Blake Bortles, Kyle Orton and E.J. Manuel.
2. Hackett’s last job was a total disaster. He was fired after 15 games as the head coach of the Broncos with the team at 4-11. He looked completely overmatched in the job. You may not worry about what happened in Denver because Hackett is not coming to the Jets as a head coach, but the offense he oversaw there was terrible. The Broncos were last in the league in scoring. Hackett gave up the play-calling duties at one point to try to spark the offense.
There clearly was a lot of dysfunction going on with Wilson and the team. Hackett may have tried too hard to blend what Wilson liked from Seattle into his offense. It is not easy for a first-time coach to have a celebrity quarterback. Wilson had a lot of juice after the Broncos traded for him. Hackett also did not come to Denver with general manager George Paton, and the team was sold last year. There was a lot going on.
But it has to be a concern that the Broncos offense looked as bad as it did under Hackett.
3. For all the praise Saleh wants to heap on Hackett for his rushing attacks, the passing numbers have not been good for Hackett. He has had just two top-10 passing offenses in nine tries, both in Green Bay with Rodgers and LaFleur calling the plays. Most of the time his passing offenses have been in the middle of the pack. Maybe the Jets can live like that if their rushing attack takes a huge leap, but at some point, you need to be able to throw the ball.
Whoever the Jets get at quarterback will have a say in how the passing offense performs. If the Jets can land a top quarterback, Hackett will look like a better coach. He had the 17th-best passing offense with Blake Bortles in 2017. That is probably the strongest thing on Hackett’s resume.
Stat’s so
Roster revival
The offseason is upon us. I am in Mobile, Ala., this week for the Senior Bowl, which always feels like the real kickoff of the offseason. One thing I keep thinking is how much better the Jets roster is now than it has been. Typically, I go into the offseason thinking the Jets have holes all over the roster. This year? Not so much.
The Jets obviously have a major hole at quarterback. After that, Joe Douglas must address the offensive line with two or three new starters. Beyond that? They could upgrade at safety and add some depth at wide receiver, but I don’t think there is a long list of needs.
That is a credit to the work Douglas has done the past few offseasons. The Jets roster is way better than it has been in a long time.
