Hack on track for what could be another full season saddled to bench
Hackenberg has been active for just two games — both when Bryce Petty was injured.
The Jets gave Hackenberg every opportunity this summer to win the starting job, but he stumbled. He finished the preseason 32-of-74 (56.8 percent) for 372 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. He had a quarterback rating of just 68.1 and led the Jets to points on five of his 36 drives.
“I think Christian has done some positive things,” Maccagnan said. “There are areas he still needs to improve upon, but I’m encouraged with the work him and Bryce are putting in. … They’re developing players. We’ll see how they develop moving forward.”
The thought entering this season was the Jets would let McCown start the season, but at some point the team would need to play Hackenberg to evaluate him before making a decision whether to draft a quarterback next spring. But McCown has played better than anyone expected and pushed off any transition date at the position for the Jets.
If the season slips away from the Jets over the next month, Hackenberg could see time late in the season. But if the Jets keep winning and McCown stays healthy, there is a chance Maccagnan would have to make a decision on Hackenberg this winter without having seen him take a snap in a game that counts.
“I don’t think there’s a prerequisite of what we need or don’t need to do,” Maccagnan said. “I think the one thing is we’ll see how this season progresses. We still have seven games left to play. As I mentioned before, you don’t know how the season will unfold.”
Maccagnan has drafted two quarterbacks in his time as Jets GM — Hackenberg and Petty. Neither has shown they can be the answer for the team’s decades-long search for a franchise quarterback. This past spring, the Jets could have taken DeShaun Watson at No. 6, but selected safety Jamal Adams instead. Before Watson tore his ACL and needed season-ending surgery, that decision looked like one that could come back to bite the Jets. Maccagnan said he won’t second-guess himself.
“When you go through your draft process, you sit back and you analyze, a few years removed, to see how your players did, but I feel very good about the players and the decisions we made,” he said. “Obviously, Deshaun was doing a very good job for Houston. … I tend to look forward in things like that. You don’t go back and play the what-if game.”
The Jets took Adams in the first round and fellow safety Marcus Maye in the second round. Both have had strong rookie seasons.
“For the two young players to come in and play not only as well as they’ve played, but also from an intangible standpoint, we feel we have two very good young players at that position,” Maccagnan said. “When you watch the energy they bring to practice, it’s a real positive going forward that we feel good about. ... They both have come in and performed, in our minds, very well.”