The Denver Broncos hired Nathaniel Hackett as their new head coach on Thursday. Where does his offense rank throughout his coaching career?
New Denver Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett has been a coach in football since 2003 when he started as an assistant linebacker coach for UC Davis.
Since then, he has made his fair share of stops in the coaching ranks. Along with UC Davis, he has coached for Stanford as an offensive and defensive assistant to coordinators. He then was a specialist/recruiting coordinator for the same college.
He left for the NFL after the 2005 season to be an offensive quality control coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2006-2007. He held the same title with the Buffalo Bills for the next two years after that before spending the next three years at Syracuse as their Passing game coordinator/Quarterbacks/tight ends coach and Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks/tight ends coach.
Hackett returned to the Bills for the 2013-2014 seasons as the offensive coordinator.
The Jacksonville Jaguars then hired him for their vacant quarterbacks coach position. There, he helped former 3rd overall pick Blake Bortles be successful and throw 35 touchdowns—the most of Bortles’ career by far.
Broncos Country Tonight’s Benjamin Allbright dug up some rankings for the different positions/phases of the game Hackett has been responsible for during his time in Buffalo and Jacksonville.
Nathaniel Hackett was not a play-caller in Green Bay, but he was a play-caller in Buffalo and Jacksonville.
— Benjamin Allbright (@AllbrightNFL) January 27, 2022
Here's how his offenses ranked there. pic.twitter.com/cIJPIRaRk8
Those passing ratings are not stellar but to be fair, neither of those teams had a franchise quarterback during those years. At least with the Green Bay Packers, he had Aaron Rodgers at quarterback and went 33-9 during the last three seasons, throwing for 111 touchdowns and just 13 interceptions in that time.
While the Broncos have suffered through several different quarterbacks over the last six years, it does appear that Hackett has the ability to produce some solid running games during that period of time.
Just look at 2013 with the Bills and 2017 with the Jaguars: 1st in attempts and 2nd in yards in 2013, 1st in attempts, and 1st in yards (and 2nd in touchdowns).
The Bills had EJ Manuel (10), Thaddeus Lewis (5), and Jeff Tuel (1) start games for them during that year while the Jaguars had Blake Bortles start all 16 games during the 2017 season.
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If the Denver Broncos do not get Rodgers in a trade with the Packers, I hope that they figure something else out that will be for the long-term. If the Rodgers trade does not come to fruition, I can definitely see Hackett utilizing running backs Melvin Gordon (if he’s re-signed) and Javonte Williams to their fullest.