The optics, after all, aren’t good.
The Jets’ hiring of Nathaniel Hackett on Thursday as their latest offensive coordinator was unlikely cause for celebration amongst Jets fans who’re still reeling from watching the team play its final three games without scoring a single touchdown.
Hackett is coming off a messy one-and-done season as a first-time head coach in Denver, where the Broncos finished the season with the fewest points scored within the NFL.
The son of former Jets offensive coordinator Paul Hackett, who was with team from 2001-2004 under Herman Edwards, was fired with two games remaining within the season.
Not an amazing look.
Neither is the incontrovertible fact that Hackett is the Jets’ ninth offensive coordinator previously 13 seasons.
For all the surface-level demerits that include this hire, though, Hackett have to be given a probability — for several reasons.
Firstly, the performance of quarterback Russell Wilson, signed to an unwieldy contract despite being in decline, looked as if it would sabotage the Broncos a minimum of as much as coaching.
Secondly, despite Hackett’s lack of highly ranked offenses during most of his time as an offensive coordinator in his stops in Buffalo and Jacksonville, consider the quarterbacks he was coaching: EJ Manuel and Kyle Orton in Buffalo and Blake Bortles and Cody Kessler in Jacksonville.
Thirdly, there’s a minimum of a possibility that Hackett is a bit to a puzzle that lands Packers superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers, with whom he’s very close, in a trade.
The Rodgers situation still must play out as he decides whether he desires to keep playing and, if he does, whether he desires to remain in Green Bay or be traded.
Jets head coach Robert Saleh insisted he and Hackett didn’t discuss which potential veteran quarterbacks the team plans to pursue this offseason. With all due respect to Saleh, that seems almost unimaginable to imagine.
Hackett, with money and time remaining on his Denver contract and fresh off a season wherein he was subject to a flood of public ridicule, didn’t must jump at this job. He didn’t must take any job — particularly one at a spot where the pinnacle coach is probably going working under a tacit playoffs-or-bust edict in ’23.
Quarterback plans needed to be discussed amongst Saleh, general manager Joe Douglas and Hackett for him to have taken this job. With the Rodgers-to-the-Jets talk gaining momentum and along with his relationship with Hackett, Saleh surely desired to tamp that down as much as possible.
Saleh, too, did his best to tamp down Hackett’s poor showing in Denver, though he didn’t run and conceal from Hackett’s rough ride with the Broncos.
“It’s a part of the résumé and I get it, but you bought to have the discipline to look past recency bias,’’ Saleh said. “You bought to give you the option to look past the … whatever you would like to call Denver. But the very fact of the matter is that he got to Denver, and he had that chance due to his life’s work as an offensive coordinator and all the several things that he’s done on this league and the way much respect he’s garnered throughout the league.’’
One person with respect for Hackett is Doug Marrone, his head coach in Buffalo and Jacksonville.
“He’s a sensible guy who’s done an excellent job with limited quarterbacks,’’ Marrone told The Post. “He’ll bring a whole lot of energy into the room and I feel he’ll get essentially the most out of the Jets’ talent. It’s going to be a tricky situation in the event that they don’t have a quarterback, but that’s everyone’s challenge.’’
Marrone praised, particularly, the job Hackett did with the 2017 Jaguars, who went to the AFC Championship game with Bortles at quarterback and ranked fifth within the league in points scored and sixth in yards.
“His best job was having a top-10 offense with Blake Bortles in 2017,’’ Marrone said. “I used to be really shocked on the Denver situation. I don’t know exactly what went flawed.’’
If things go right for the Jets with Hackett, not one of the bad optics of today will matter tomorrow.
