Former New York Jets Quarterback Blames Coaching Staff For Failed Career

The New York Jets have had a revolving door of quarterbacks over the past few decades. One of the biggest reasons there was excitement around 39-year-old Aaron Rodgers joining the team was he would be the best quarterback the team had seen in a long time. Christian Hackenberg is one of the quarterbacks who came in with promise but never was able to reach his potential on the field. In a recent podcast interview, he blamed the coaching staff for his lack of success.

New York Jets QB Christian Hackenberg On Tenure With Team

Christian Hackenberg was selected in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft by the New York Jets. He knew there were many skills he needed to work on but decided to declare for the NFL anyway. New York wasn’t the ideal destination for him to go. He talked about this on the Ross Tucker Podcast.

“New York was probably the last place I should have gone. In terms of the market, the expectations, the way it was. In my rookie year, we ended up keeping four quarterbacks, so there was not a lot of opportunity for me to develop and grow. [There was] no plan, kind of an up and down organization. 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. When I look at it introspectively, I was young, I needed a lot of help, and I needed a lot of direction and guidance [that] I never sought out. So that’s where my shortcoming was. I didn’t do those things until it was ultimately too late.”

Hackenberg talked about the volatility in the New York Jets organization. The city of New York and its media were also tough to deal with, and it affected him. He said the media “ate him alive,” and it stunted his growth.

Trade To Oakland

Christian Hackenberg never played in a regular-season game for the New York Jets. He was traded to Oakland after the former Nittany Lions quarterback complained that the staff hadn’t fixed his throwing motion in two years. The evaluation of him coming out of college is that he needed the right coaching staff in the right system. The Jets were not that.

I will say that blaming a coaching staff for not fixing something over the course of two years does raise some questions. Could Christian Hackenberg have taken it upon himself to fix the motion? While the New York Jets have been a mess of a franchise, people can succeed despite that. This is yet another story of this storied franchise being a place where quarterbacks go to fail. Hopefully, 2024 will be different for Aaron Rodgers and the Jets.