Mac wouldn’t pass up Josh return;
Mike Maccagnan surely knows the inevitable conclusion. A blend of ego and concern over his legacy has clouded his judgment. The Jets general manager unwittingly is holding back the player that he desperately wants to succeed the most. It’s time to end this charade once and for all. If Maccagnan truly wants what’s best for Christian Hackenberg, he must do the right thing by the young quarterback and release him.
Nothing else makes sense for the player or the team.
The Jets are a dead-end for Hackenberg, who deserves a chance to find a new home that will give him a puncher’s chance to get his career off the ground. Hackenberg will never play in a meaningful regular-season game for this staff.
The Jets simply don’t believe that Maccagnan’s 2016 second-round pick is close to ready to help them. Perhaps Hackenberg, only the third quarterback drafted in the first two rounds of the Super Bowl era not to take a single snap in his first two seasons, will get an opportunity to contribute elsewhere. Frankly, he deserves it given everything he has poured into his job.
“We have some good coaches on this team,” Maccagnan said about why the Jets are the best team to develop Hackenberg. “I think we have a good environment. I keep stressing: He’s only 22 years old…. He’s like every other player and going to develop at whatever pace he
Aday after Jets head coach Todd Bowles said it would be “great” to have Josh McCown back next season, general manager Mike Maccagnan mimicked the sentiment. “Based on what Josh has done, I would have no problem bringing him back,” Maccagnan said Tuesday in Florham Park. “But of course that’s another thing that’s going to play itself out here over time. He is a free agent. He obviously has to make the determination from his end with his family, what he wants to do. But everything from our standpoint has been exceptionally positive with Josh.”
On Nov. 30, about a week before he suffered a season-ending broken hand in a loss at the Broncos, McCown certainly sounded like like a man who wanted to play another season.
“When you feel like you’ve been chasing, kind of, this level that you believe you can play at for a long time, and you start to feel like you’re scratching the surface of that and doing some of those things and settling into a system that you like, it’s hard to just go, ‘Yeah, man, I’ll be done,’” McCown said then.
Before his season ended, McCown was enjoying a career year. He missed the final 3.5 games of the season but still set careerhighs in passing yards (2,926), passing touchdowns (18), completion percentage (67.3) and rushing touchdowns (5).
McCown, who turns 39 in July, has said repeatedly that he will need to speak with his family before coming to a final decision on 2018. He officially becomes a free agent in March. The Jets did not make him available to the media Monday.
SILENCE ON WILKERSON
Acting Jets owner Christopher Johnson was asked how disappointed he is with the way defensive lineman Muhammad Wilkerson finished the 2017 season.
Wilkerson was a healthy scratch for the final three games of the year. He was left home for the Jets’ loss at the Saints in