New York Jets: No what ifs for Christian Hackenberg selection

The inevitable what if train is rolling into town now that Christian Hackenberg is gone from the New York Jets, but don’t fall into that trap. It’s a useless discussion.

The New York Jets decided to reach for a project quarterback in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft. The Christian Hackenberg experiment failed, and the Jets now have a guy they believe to be the franchise quarterback. But what if they had drafted…

No we are not going there. That is a useless road to travel. It will lead nowhere.

Yes, there are plenty of players selected after Hackenberg that turned out to be solid, good, or even great NFL players. If you point out the Jets could’ve had players like Deion Jones — who was selected immediately after Hackenberg at No 52 — Yannick Ngakoue, Kendall Fuller, and others.

There are two questions to be asked. How would these players have played on the Jets? That can’t be fully answered, but some may have played just as well.

The second question can’t be answered. Who would the quarterback be had they not drafted Hackenberg? They may have drafted a different quarterback, or they may have still gotten Hackenberg later in the draft. Either way, the team may still have been searching for that elusive franchise quarterback.

The team may have been just good enough to not land a quarterback. In addition to that, they may have not been in a good position to move up to the No. 3 spot either without having to over spend for it.

Next: NFL 2018: Rookie class bold predictions

The Jets appear to be in a good position for the future. So, in the end, the what if exercise is a waste of time. There’s not point in looking back and wondering.  The questions we ask can’t be fully answered anyway. So, let’s not look back but only forward.