Nathaniel Hackett by the Numbers

On Thursday, the New York Jets announced the hiring of offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. Notably, Hackett has held this role for 8 other seasons, which may help to inform our expectations of what we can expect from an offense under his coaching.

One such statistic that we can use to provide a summary of Hackett’s offenses is expected points added (EPA) on a per-play basis. An explanation of EPA can be found here, and by examining it on a per-play basis we can compare the general efficiency of an offense without having our scores effected by the number of plays an offense was able to run. Notably, this data has been covered by Pro-Football Focus whose table I have recreated below.

As shown by the table, Hackett has had some significant success as an offensive coordinator. Specifically, his offense’s finished 8th, 1st, and 2nd in the league in EPA per play in 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively, while he was the coordinator for the Green Bay Packers. Notably, his quarterback for those seasons was Aaron Rodgers, a player who has recently been linked to the Jets.

An additional feather in Hackett’s cap can be found in the performance of the 2017 Jacksonville Jaguars offense. Notably, this offense was led by Blake Bortles, a quarterback commonly thought of as a ‘bust.’ Despite this, the offense finished 12th in EPA per play en route to an AFC Championship Game berth.

Aside from these four seasons, Hackett’s other four offenses have generally done poorly with EPA per play rankings no higher than 25th in the league.

Overall, this paints a picture of a mixed bag of success wherein some seasons his offense performs well, while in others they do not. As it pertains to the Jets, it is notable that his good seasons seem to coincide with coaching Aaron Rodgers, while his bad seasons are generally any year where his QB was not Aaron Rodgers (with 2017 as an exception).

But what do you think about this? Should we be expecting the good or the bad Hackett in 2023?