Just hours after reminding the press the Jets forgot about him, Gang Green traded Christian Hackenberg to the Oakland Raiders for a conditional seventh round pick.
You couldn’t blame the club, since he’s No. 4 on the depth chart and had no chance of starting for the Jets. No sports book like BestOnlineSportsbooks.info would even make odds on it.
He just was a pick that didn’t work out.
“Anytime a pick doesn’t work out, I guess you could look at it as a waste,” coach Todd Bowles said. “When it does work out, it’s not a waste. You learn lessons from everything you do in life. It’s not just draft picks and football. If anybody’s got a four-leaf clover up their butt and it’s going to work out every time, please let me know that person. It didn’t work out here.”
And why didn’t it work out in Florham Park?
“I can’t answer that fully,” Bowles said. “Some players, it takes them a while to get going. Some go to Canada. Some go to different teams. Some do different types of stuff. We did everything we could to try to help him as best we could. Sometimes it just works out somewhere else.”
Bowles said he had nothing against Hackenberg, the Jets didn’t think he was ready for prime time and with the chance to pick Sam Darnold as the quarterback of the future, Hackenberg became expendable.
It’s a shame, actually, since the Jets wasted a No. 2 pick on Hackenberg. He came into the OTAs ready to play after hiring Jeff Christensen as his personal coach, who changed his throwing motion. The Jets held him out today, because of the pending trade.
“I think there were some times where I threw it really good throughout my first two years here,” Hackenberg said. “That was the frustrating part for me, the ups and downs and not knowing why, if that makes sense and not really getting any information from anybody on how to fix that, how to address it.”
A move had to mbe made. Besides Darnold, who would probably be the starter by the end of the season, the Jets brought back Josh McCown and signed Teddy Bridgewater, both of whom will see action on the club early in the season.
The former Penn State quarterback will not take his skills to Oakland and possible land a spot backing up Derek Carr.
“Hack’s a great guy,” Bowles said. “He’s 23 years old. He should want to play and he’s a competitor. I understand that.”
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