Goodbye, Paul Hackett

Posted by
January 19, 2005

Jets offensive coordinator Paul Hackett resigned today. Good riddance.

I’m glad a change is being made but I’m not one of those who have gotten on the “Hackett Must Go” bangwagon as a result of Sundays overtime loss to Pittsburgh. I’ve been unhappy with his offensive scheemes for a couple of years now. I felt they should have fired him after last season but I guess they didn’t feel like working with 2 new coordinators this year after firing former defensive coordinator Ted Cotrell.

Why am I happy to see a change? Several reasons:

  1. I’ve seen Hackett’s offense get far too conservative when playing with a lead late in games. Most often this gives the opposition reason to believe they can win the game and puts far too much pressure on the defense. This leads to the inevitable loss or game that ends far too close for comfort. When you have an opportunity to put the game away you need to take it.

  2. On third and long you’re supposed to call a play that’s get you past the first down marker. You’re not supposed to call a screen pass that falls 2 yards short. You’re not supposed to hand it off to your star running back who can’t get the long yardage on every play.

  3. You’re allowed to pass to your tight ends.

  4. You call that a West Coast offense? Where’s the vertical game. Don’t tell me Chad Pannington doesn’t have the right arm for it. The few times I’ve seen some aggressive play calling (such as the third quarter of the playoff game against Pittsburgh) Pennington acquitted himself quite well.

There are other reasons too but I can’t think of them right now.

Hackett seems like a good man and he knows his business very well. I just don’t think he’s the right fit for this team and hasn’t been for quite some time. This week’s game may have been the nail in the coffin but this change was inevitable for a while. I wish coach Hackett well in his future endeavors and look forward to ctriticizing the next guy.

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