Acting Jets owner Christopher Johnson made it clear he didn’t think the team was tanking in order to draft a quarterback.
He also thinks there’s a quarterback with potential already on the roster.
Via Daniel Popper of the New York Daily News, Johnson said he thinks second-year quarterback Christian Hackenberg has a chance to succeed.
“The quarterback position is really difficult to evaluate, and we haven’t really seen where Christian might go,” Johnson said. “I’m really more about looking forward than looking back.
“Everybody’s going to look back and find places where things have gone wrong. I don’t think that you can say that about Christian. I think that he has a lot of upside, and I hope to see it.”
It’s hard to tell when he will. Hackenberg was given plenty of reps this offseason, and started two preseason games to see if he was ready to start in a real one. He didn’t play well, and now he’s third on the depth chart behind Josh McCown and Bryce Petty. He was inactive last week, and he’s not in a position to get many reps in practice because they’re busy trying to get the starters ready
“His chance will come and he’ll have time to fight again,” coach Todd Bowles said.
And he apparently has support from above, and from the guy who burned a second-round pick on him.