yes I wonder if that’s the case… I agree this job was going to be hard to fill with an A list candidate due to the lack of a legit QB and the perceived win-now pressure on JD and Saleh. Which is why I wasn’t convinced firing MLF was the right move. I know the offense sucked, but to me it was more due to the shitty QB play than the scheme. Playcalling was not great but I still think he could’ve improved on that. The one thing I’m not privy to is the behind the scenes stuff and if MLF was really alienating too many players then I totally get the firing. but for me, I was not impressed with any of the names I heard…they were all either newbies like MLF or failed coaches like Hackett. I get Hackett has had success in the role, so that’s promising and I’ll hope it Carrie’s over, but there are PLENTY of red flags on him, including his putrid offense in Denver. As an offensive coach that side of the ball should have been much much better. but regardless here we are…he’s the guy so I have to hope he does well here. But I do also wonder if this makes the Rodgers talk more real. We’ll see…time will tell. At least we know that Zach will be on the team but not as the first option…and even though many of the available names are average at best, that would still be SO much better than the crap we got from Zach.
It was a massive failure of a lot of people, but Hackett is front center. Put Russ right there too, but it does not absolve massive failure by Hackett to end as the worst offense in NFL. Worse than MILF with Zach/Flacco/White/Strev at QB and two starting tackles playing with severe injuries. You are blaming MILF for not making it work with Zach and ultimately failing - and he deserves it - but by the same token Hackett deserves it even more blame for not making it work with Russ, who was a top QB before last season almost every year. The point is, let's not discount Denver's failure. It happened, and Hack sucked bad there. Now, it was only one year (Saleh's defense was last the year before too before moving up to #4 this year), as you noted there were other factors, and he did pretty well in other stops. He may also have learned from some of his mistakes last year, so there is some hope he will do much better here. I realize the perfect candidate was not available, so I am OK with Hack's hire, he is probably better than MILF, and he increases chances of getting Rodgers, which if he helps to bring him in, it will be a home run hire. I just want to look at him fairly, and you cannot do that without accepting that Denver was pretty bad stain on his record. How did that work out?
let’s not lose sight of the point that you tried to make. Hackett was not running his offense in Denver. And to respond to your whole post even though it wasn’t directed at me, of course we shouldn’t ignore what happened in Denver but it’s a massive case of apples and oranges. He wasn’t running in the system he wanted to run and was trying to blend his system with a style that a declining quarterback wanted to play which directly clashes with the way Hackett has historically run his offenses. He was in a no-win situation and even though he definitely could have handled things better, luckily that’s not what we hired him to do.
I know people keep saying it he is getting paid, but it's not like Denver is taking this money away. Jets money is additional money he will make. He is being offered the absolute best position he can get given how badly he failed in Denver while maximizing his earning potential. This was just a smart move on Hack's part.
He wasn't able to adapt - that's the point. Much like MILF, but on a much bigger scale, given he had a future HOF QB, who wasn't old. He was very much in a win situation, but he failed. Now, it is possible Russ declined, but it's not like MILF had some great proven QBs to work with either. Hence the parallel I am trying to draw. Now, to your point, I do think Hack will do better here. He has done pretty decent before and I don't think one year of epic failure erases all that. Particularly if we can get Rodgers, whom he is proven to do great with.
My point is that the parallel isn’t really that fair, hence the apples and oranges. He had a great QB to work with that had plenty of limitations physically. He’s not the runner he was yet he wants to get out of the pocket and improvise and Chuck bombs. How do you try to mix and match or west coast off fence with that? MLF flopped for way more rudimentary reasons. Terrible playcalling, zero innovation, having no idea how to use certain players in the most obvious ways. See: Elijah Moore on the sidelines for bubble screens because MLF thought Berrios was better suited to run them since they mimic a punt return situation. Fucking baffling. It’s also easy to say he’s the head coach and he should have been able to adapt but that’s also kind of bullshit. And that’s why the team stuck with the quarterback they traded the farm for and paid a ton of money and ditched the head coach.
You’re right. Not sure why he didn’t think of that. It was probably up for debate and he chose to not say anything. That’s probably how it went.
You keep cherry picking individual parts of posts that make a bigger point and it’s not constructive.
I picked the key part: the QB. You keep ignoring the fact that there was a vast QB discrepancy between what MILF and Hack had last year at the position. You are saying Russ, coming of multiple Pro Bowl seasons every year in his career, wasn't a system fit, and Hack couldn't possibly adapt not to finish the absolute worst 32 in NFL by wide margin, while at the same time MILF, who had a carrousel of nobodies at the position, should have adapted better than finishing 29th. This makes absolutely no sense to me. And I am not excusing MILF either. I am not even saying Hack overall is worse than MILF for the Jets. But if you still believe that last year was anything but an epic failure for Hack, I agree, this is not constructive, and we will have to disagree and move on.
You and other posters have mentioned a few times that a coach should “adapt to its players” but for the most part, that’s not how life works. Coaches have their tendencies, players have their tendencies, PEOPLE have their tendencies. If the players tendencies and the coaches philosophies don’t match, that’s a GM issue.
And this is why you can’t pick out one part of a post that makes a bigger point. Around in circles we go. I can fully acknowledge that Hacker did a terrible job as a head coach but what I’m not going to do is pretend like that applies here when we hired him to do a different job and the applicable part of his job last year isn’t the style he’s going to run here. He was forced to change his style to blend two completely different things into one while trying to get a quarterback on the decline to fit into both. That sentence doesn’t describe MLF at all. That’s my point.
Let's hope you are right. Or better yet, we get Rodgers or Carr, and I think the offense will be a lot better next year.
A good coach, while holding onto his ideas and beliefs, will figure out a way to adapt them to the players he has. There are numerous examples. Perhaps most famously was Bill Walsh: https://www.thephinsider.com/2014/2/13/5406774/football-101-what-is-a-west-coast-offense "Walsh initially developed the "West Coast Offense" when he was the quarterbacks coach and offensive play caller for the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals had rookie Greg Cook at quarterback in 1969, only to see him tear his rotator cuff in Week 3 of the season. Walsh completely redesigned his offense, removing the vertical passing attack that Cook's shoulder could no longer support, and inserting the "nickel-and-dime" plays. Rather than running the ball to set up deep passing attacks, Walsh would now turn to his running backs and tight ends for short, ball control passes, using the short pass to spread the defense before taking the longer shots." Had Walsh not adapted, the WCO would've never evolved. And here's another interesting snippet from that same article: "Key Player Types Typical players in a WCO are: Quarterback: Mobile, accurate passer who makes good decisions. Does not have to have the strongest arm, since short passes are the key. Linemen: Mobile, agile blockers who can roll a pocket with a mobile quarterback. The WCO is not a power running game, so zone blocking is more prominent. Wide receivers: Accurate route runners, with good timing with the quarterback. Needs to be able to separate himself in traffic and make a play after the catch on shorter routes. Running backs: Need to be a receiving threat, with good route-running skills. Also needs to be able to pass block, protecting the quarterback on 5-step drops. The offense will look to break longer runs later in a game, so a home run threat running back, who can step up and pass block, is ideal. Does not necessarily need to be the biggest, power runner. Tight ends: Needs to be a blocker, as well as a possession receiver. Has to have good hands, able to catch a ball in traffic, especially over the middle as a progression target." Does that describe the types of players that Douglas assembled to run MLF's offense? Perhaps JD was fooled by Zach's accuracy stats at BYU since he finished 2nd in college football. Or maybe he figured Zach would learn to adapt to the NFL more quickly. And it's odd because one of ZW's strengths is his strong arm which the WCO doesn't really require (although it doesn't prohibit it either). In any case, the decision to start him in a derivative of the WCO was a big mistake. While I obviously was a big fan of taking Zach at #2 in hindsight, and given MLF's apparent lack of desire to adjust his version of the WCO to Zach, it looks like a mistake. Frankly, if I were Douglas, I would've pushed Saleh to hire an OC with a different system better suited to Zach because QBs with his physical traits are few and far between, but that's all water under the bridge. And our OL haven't proven to be very mobile and agile, and I wonder if that hasn't led to the number of injuries. As for WRs, Cory Davis is a good route runner, as is GW (but he wasn't here in 2021), but Davis doesn't have good hands. Moore is not a good route runner, nor is Mims, so why did Douglas allow the hiring of a guy whose system needed different players? With Breece Hall they did get a "HR threat", but no one else fits that bill. Finally, the TEs are decent blockers, but haven't proven to have good hands. It wasn't just Zach who wasn't a good fit for MLF's offense, and begs the question: Why did Douglas allow this? Looking back on two years, it seems pretty clear that MLF's version of the WCO wasn't going to work, and in fact it didn't.
Actually what's "stupid" is you saying "it was his offense". No, it wasn't. It was a bastard version of the offense he wanted to run, made to try and work with the demands of R. Wilson. Sure, he could've told the Broncos, "Either we run MY offense, or I quit". That would've also been "stupid". So he tried to make it work, and it didn't. To make it work would have - and will - require them to rebuild their offense from the ground up around RW. Good luck with that. I'm glad I'm not a Broncos fan.
I really wanted to just pretend this post never existed but my God, this is an all timer. Everybody remembers that fantastic Kyle Shanahan defense that almost led the Niners to a title right!?
But why are you then defending Hack's last year when he could not adapt to Russ? Was it more difficult for Walsh to adapt to rookie Cook with torn rotator cuff? Even if he could not fully adapt - to finish 32nd in NFL? That's even worse than MIILF with Zach, who also as you say wasn't a fit. And neither was Flacco and White. "Quarterback: Mobile..." Yet as bad as MILF was, he somehow outperformed Hack with Russ. There is no explanation for that that does not include Hack having a brutally terrible year as a coach.
