After attending Penn State and being drafted within the second spherical by the Jets in 2016, Christian Hackenberg has poor reminiscences of his time in New York.
Hackenberg, who by no means took a snap in a regular-season NFL recreation, opened up this week about his poor expertise in New York and the way Gang Inexperienced was not an excellent match for him.
“New York was in all probability the final place I ought to’ve gone, when it comes to the market, the expectations, the best way it was,” Hackenberg mentioned on the “Ross Tucker Soccer Podcast,” on Wednesday. “In my rookie yr, we ended up conserving 4 quarterbacks. So there was simply not a variety of alternative for me to develop and develop. No plan, form of an up-and-down group.
“And I believe it was simply a type of issues the place the timing and the place it ended up simply wasn’t within the playing cards for me at that place.”
Hackenberg was extremely wanted in highschool, rating because the No. 1 total quarterback recruit for the category of 2013, in accordance with ESPN.
After throwing for 8,457 yards and 48 touchdowns in three seasons at Penn State, he went to the Jets within the second spherical.
However Hackenberg spent simply two seasons with the Jets, who had a revolving door of quarterbacks throughout his tenure beneath head coach Todd Bowles.
Snaps got to Ryan Fitzpatrick, Bryce Petty, Geno Smith and Josh McCown from 2016-17, however Hackenberg by no means noticed the sector for the Jets in a recreation that counted.
Hackenberg was lastly traded after his second season with the Jets, being moved to the Raiders for a conditional seventh-round choose in Could 2018.
The previously extremely touted prospect would final simply three weeks with the Raiders and would have stints with the Eagles and Bengals that yr.
Hackenberg mentioned it was a “battle” with all of the expectations he confronted.
“There’s so many circumstances that go into it. And after I got here out, I nonetheless knew that I wanted lots that I wanted to get higher at,” Hackenberg mentioned of getting drafted. “However on the identical token, I additionally had all these expectations and the narrative on the market that this child was going to be good.
“It was simply this actually form of battle internally after which externally with messaging and the way issues had been being portrayed that I needed to cope with.”
Hackenberg tried to ignite a baseball profession in 2020 after his NFL profession pale, boasting a fastball that reached 90-plus mph, although he shortly deserted that dream.
