It’s hard to understand why it’s suddenly novel that the Jets don’t trust Hackett and tried to replace him by going over his head. That came out months ago. It didn’t work — who else but Hackett would take the position of Aaron Rodgers’ lapdog? — so Robert Saleh & Co. are left praying that Rodgers stays healthy. Otherwise, even with a much better backup quarterback in Tyrod Taylor and superior offensive line pieces, the Jets’ offense could once again be the utter disaster it was in 2023.
Yes, it might be the Jets’ biggest concern of 2024. But that’s news to no one.
The thing is that Rodgers does run the offense at the line of scrimmage just as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning did. Brady reportedly had his own drama with play-calling, as he and Byron Leftwich would outright defy Bruce Arians’ game plan and create their own plans each week. Was that a functional situation in Tampa? And yet, they won a ring.
Of course, that’s not to say this Jets situation will have such a happy ending. It could, but it could also blow up. It simply wouldn’t be the first time that a future Hall of Fame quarterback came into a situation and ran his offense. Ask any Jets fan whether Manning actually relied on Adam Gase for anything at all.
I’m not defending Hackett in the slightest. He was historically atrocious. That he has a job right now after perhaps the biggest offensive debacle in NFL history is purely a function of nepotism at its finest. Sean Payton was not wrong about his predecessor in Denver.
Still, trying to revive old news on a slow news day is an old trick. It’s tiresome. There’s no new drama here.
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