QB Hackenberg traded to Raiders

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Christian Hackenberg spent his final day with the New York Jets much as he did in his first two seasons. As a spectator.

The Jets traded the 23-year-old quarterback to the Oakland Raiders on Tuesday for a conditional seventhround draft pick next year, ending Hackenberg’s tenure with the team before he ever took a regular-season snap.

“Some players, it takes a while for them to get going,” said coach Todd Bowles, who announced the trade after his post-practice news conference was delayed for two hours as the deal was being completed.

“We did everything we could to try to help him as best we could,” Bowles added. “Sometimes it just works out somewhere else.”

Hackenberg was a second-round pick out of Penn State in 2016, but never played a regular-season snap for the Jets. The quarterback was clearly No. 4 on New York’s depth chart, behind veterans Josh McCown and Teddy Bridgewater and first-rounder Sam Darnold.

“We’ve got three quarterbacks and obviously we drafted Sam in the first (round),” Bowles said. “We like Teddy and we like Josh. We just had one too many to get all of them reps.”

Hackenberg stood back and merely watched as McCown, Bridgewater and Darnold took their snaps during 11on-11 and 7-on-7 team drills during the first practice of organized team activities. Hackenberg threw during position drills, but that was it — and, as it turned out, that was by design.

“We held him out today because we had things in the works,” Bowles said, “in case something happened.”

Hackenberg joins a quarterbacks room with the Raiders that includes Derek Carr, EJ Manuel and Connor Cook.