The Jets have a long history of draft picks, and quarterbacks in particular who never panned out the way they were supposed to. From Zach Wilson, to Sam Darnold, to Geno Smith, to Mark Sanchez and so on, the team always winds up with the guy who just couldn’t make it work.
None of those quarterbacks hold a candle to the failure of Christian Hackenberg.
Under the guidance of then General Manager Mike Maccagnan, the New York Jets took the Penn State quarterback with the 51st overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft to play under Jets’ head coach Todd Bowles. A decision that was widely criticized both in and out of the building.
Many of the coaches did not want Hackenberg and it was reported the Maccagnan was the driving force behind the pick.
Hackenberg never played a single down for the Jets, or any other team, something that is extremely rare for such a high pick. All but 11 of the 1,303 players drafted in the first and second rounds from 2000 to 2020 have appeared in at least one game, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Hackenberg was the only healthy scratch of those players who is now out of the league.
Speaking on the Ross Tucker Podcast, Christian recounted his tenure with the Jets after being out of the league for years.
New York was probably the last place I should have gone, in terms of the market, the expectations the way it was. My rookie year, we ended up keeping four quarterbacks so there was just not a lot of opportunity for me to develop and grow. No plan. A kind of a up and down organization. And it was just one of those things where I think just the timing, and where it ended up just wasn't in the cards for me at that position. And then, you know, when I look at it, introspectively, I was young, I needed a lot of help. And I needed a lot of direction and guidance, and I never, I never sought that out. And so that's where my shortcoming was, is, I didn't do all those things until it was ultimately too late. - Christian Hackenberg
Hackenberg paints a picture of a kid who needed a lot of guidance and was thrust onto a team where much of the staff didn’t want him, and he was too young and prideful to understand how to ask for help. The Jets kept four quarterbacks his rookie season. Led by Ryan Fitzpatrick there was also Geno Smith and Bryce Petty. A lot of knowledge in that quarterback room, but not a lot of reps to go around.
Shortly after drafting Darnold in 2018, the Jets traded Hackenberg to the Oakland Raiders for a 2019 conditional seventh-round pick, but he lasted only three weeks. Hackenberg was eventually out of the league after brief stops with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals.
In listening to him speak, he seems at peace with how things turned out. He doesn’t blame the Jets for things not working out in the NFL, but he also understands that it wasn’t the place for him to be drafted to. An honestly fair assessment. Would have he turned into a Hall of Famer if he went to another team? Probably not. But he might have had a better chance considering the situation the Jets were in at the time.
Hackenberg is a cautionary tale for NFL owners to scare their GM’s and coaches with at night. It is important for an entire organization to be on the same page or you could draft the boogy man: Hackenberg.
After all these years, I think I can finally forgive Hackenberg for his short comings as quarterback and place the blame where it belongs: on Mike Maccagnan.
