New York Jets: Christian Hackenberg never really wanted it

Christian Hackenberg never really wanted it badly enough to be the starting quarterback of the New York Jets.

New York Jets fans can finally smile, as the Christian Hackenberg experiment is finally over. After two years of riding the pine his time in New York is over. For anyone who missed it, here is the trade with the Oakland Raiders:

A former second round pick is only able to bring in a seventh round pick in return. It’s a said ending to what was an ill-advised choice to begin with. Now the Jets can move forward with Josh McCown, Teddy Bridgewater and Sam Darnold in 2018.

Before leaving the team, Hackenberg had some thoughts about the coaching he has received in New York. Most already know that he re-worked his throwing motion coming into 2018. We didn’t know why. Here is what Hackenberg had to say (via the Daily News):

"“I don’t know,” Hackenberg said Tuesday after the Jets opened OTAs in Florham Park. “I think there were some times where I threw it really good throughout my first two years here, so that was the frustrating part for me, is the ups and downs and not knowing why, if that makes sense, and not really getting any information from anybody on how to fix that and how do address it.”"

Contrary to what people think, this is not simply an indictment of the Jets. If you give it some thought, this is actually a window into who Christian really is and it shows the fact that he really never wanted it to begin with.

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First of all the comments sound like simple sour grapes. Does anyone really believe that the coaches never said a word to Hackenberg about how to get better? They just let him throw badly and didn’t try to teach him anything? Come on now.

Jeremy Bates has had a solid history with quarterbacks, and if Chan Gailey could get Ryan Fitzpatrick to perform he could reach just about anyone. It’s more likely that Hackenberg realized he isn’t that good and he needed a scapegoat. That scapegoat was the franchise.

Granted, they are an easy target. It has been a long time since they developed a quarterback well. But that doesn’t mean the quarterbacks don’t try to develop them. There is no doubt in my mind that the coaches tried to help with his mechanics, he just didn’t have the ability to make the improvements.

Yes he backed off the comments a little by saying he wasn’t passing the blame. Make no mistake, that’s exactly what he did. He only backed off because he didn’t want to seem like he had a bad attitude when he ended up somewhere else. But it’s clear that he is to blame.

Now, how do we know he didn’t want it? Let’s say that everything he said was true. Let’s say the coaches never told Hackenberg anything about how to improve his mechanics. They just left him out of sight and never advised him. Pretend all of that is true.

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Are we to believe that Hackenberg didn’t know he had a problem? He just saw the passes that were errant and assumed they were going to magically improve? Of course not. He knew that something was wrong. He just didn’t have the interest to make the changes on his own until he knew the writing was on the wall that he would be gone.

Think about it. The Jets draft Darnold, NOW Hackenberg decides it’s time to get better? He had plenty of time to seek out coaching on his own if he didn’t like what he was getting with the team. He did it now because he knew he would be gone and he wanted to be seen by other teams as a guy that wanted to get better. The Jets were simply the scapegoat.

Good riddance to Christian Hackenberg. It was a bad idea anyway and he did nothing to make it better.

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