For most players in the NFL, it’s “what have you done for me lately?” But for Jets rookie Christian Hackenberg, they’re as concerned about what he did three years ago.
Via Seth Walder of the New York Daily News, the Jets are hoping for the return of freshman-year-at-Penn-State Hackenberg, as opposed to the one who got progressively worse the following three seasons.
How much of that you pin on the departure of Bill O’Brien (and a lot of talent) after his first season and how much to pin on replacement James Franklin or Hackenberg himself depends on how desperate you are for a quarterback.
But Jets offensive coordinator Chan Gailey clearly thinks Hackenberg can do the job.
“He retained a great deal from the pro-style of offense that Bill had,” Gailey said. “You can tell. Meetings, on the board, just stuff like that. Watching film. . . .
“I think that his intelligence, his decision-making when he played in a pro-style offense as a freshman, he handled that extremely well. There were a lot of positives in that.”
Gailey referred to Hackenberg’s “potential” a number of times, and once they bring back Ryan Fitzpatrick, he’ll be able to settle in at a more comfortable pace. Until then, they need him to shake off three years of what appeared to be bad habits, and get back to the halcyon days of his youth — which weren’t really that long ago.
