The Buffalo Bills offense is in disarray. The New York Jets know a little something about that. The teams will face each other Sunday in Buffalo, and the Bills will do it with a new play-caller after coach Sean McDermott fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey on Tuesday. For Jets coach Robert Saleh, weirdly, that Bills decision could not have come at a worse time for him.
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The Bills fired Dorsey less than a day after Buffalo scored two offensive touchdowns in a 24-22 loss to the Denver Broncos. The Jets (4-5) haven’t scored two offensive touchdowns since Week 4 against the Kansas City Chiefs. They’ve gone without even one touchdown for 11 straight quarters, and have scored only two total in the last four games. Despite that, Saleh has made it clear he won’t be taking play-calling duties away from offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. And that might stay true no matter how bad it gets.
“When the reasoning is just to give a spark, I don’t adhere to that,” Saleh said Monday. “I’ve never felt like making one guy the fall guy is going to make everyone around them better.”
The Bills will test Saleh’s theory Sunday. And if the Bills’ offense improves — while the Jets’ offense keeps struggling — it will become harder and harder to keep justifying the status quo. Saleh hinted at some schematic and personnel changes, and one came Tuesday when the Jets waived running back Michael Carter. But with Zach Wilson entrenched at quarterback, there are few lineup changes the Jets could make that would have a significant impact.
If their offense keeps playing at this level, the noise to remove Hackett from his role, or at least reduce his responsibilities, will only get louder.
Would Saleh ever actually bench Hackett? Here’s everything to consider:
The quarterback situation
It is important in any discussion about the failures of the Jets’ offense to point out that they spent all offseason building an offense around Aaron Rodgers, with the understanding that he would help run it. They did not plan to lose him four plays into the season.
On the flip side, though: The Minnesota Vikings traded a 2024 sixth-round pick for Josh Dobbs and less than two weeks later he’s already led them to two wins and accounted for five touchdowns — and that’s without star wide receiver Justin Jefferson. Wilson has five touchdowns in nine games — and that’s with Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall.
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The Jets don’t seem to be in a rush to turn things over to backup Tim Boyle or practice squad quarterback Trevor Siemian, either. That only makes it more confounding that general manager Joe Douglas didn’t add any quarterback of note (like Dobbs, or Carson Wentz) after Rodgers’ Achilles injury.
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Aaron Rodgers’ opinion (yes, it matters)
The Jets hired Hackett largely to help them lure Rodgers. In that way, Hackett did the most important part of his job. Rodgers has been out, but he’s not gone. He has made it clear every week on “The Pat McAfee Show” that he plans to return, both this season and next. It seems unlikely at this juncture he’d be as motivated to do either if Hackett weren’t around. Rodgers has said Hackett was the top reason he joined the Jets in the first place.
Rodgers addressed the heat Hackett is getting on Tuesday’s McAfee show: “I see it. I won MVP twice in this same offense so I’m a believer in the offense. There’s a lot of positions that gotta play better. It’s easy right now to throw it at the usual suspects, Zach and Nathaniel, but there’s a lot of positions that need to play better.”
It is true that Rodgers won two MVPs with Hackett as his offensive coordinator in Green Bay, though that leaves out an important detail: Hackett wasn’t calling plays, Packers coach Matt LaFleur was leading the way, and Hackett oversaw the red-zone offense — which he calls the “Gold Zone.”
"I'm a believer in Nathaniel Hackett and I won back 2 back MVPs in his offense"@AaronRodgers12 #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/UzqDSKe1yR
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) November 14, 2023
Hackett’s history
Hackett and Rodgers are close friends and that friendship has proven fruitful for Hackett’s coaching career. But he also hasn’t been particularly successful as a play-caller when outside of Rodgers’ orbit.
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Many would point to the work Hackett did with Blake Bortles during the Jaguars’ AFC Championship Game run in the 2017 season — he threw for 3,687 yards, 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions — but forget what happened the following year. Bortles regressed, the offense struggled and Jaguars coach Doug Marrone fired Hackett amid a 3-8 start.
“It’s not a knee-jerk reaction, obviously,” Marrone said at the time. “I really feel at the end of the day we’ve got to try to get better production out of our passing game.”
Then there was his one season with the Broncos. Hackett was head coach and called his own plays. It didn’t go well. The Broncos had the worst scoring offense in the NFL and before a Week 11 game against the Las Vegas Raiders, he ceded play-calling duties to Klint Kubiak. Reports at the time suggested it was Hackett’s decision. He was fired as Broncos head coach before the end of the season.
Some numbers from the last 29 games, spanning time with the Jets, Broncos and Jaguars, in which Hackett was the primary play-caller:
• Averaged 16.2 points per game
• Scored 30 total touchdowns
• Scored 20 or fewer points 20 times
• Scored 10 or fewer points nine times
• Scored 30 or more points once
His teams also have a 10-19 record in those games.
Todd Downing works with Aaron Rodgers and Zach Wilson in July. (Seth Wenig / Associated Press)Who would replace him
This one is actually simple since the Jets have a ready-made replacement in-house: passing game coordinator Todd Downing. He was the offensive coordinator the last two years with the Tennessee Titans, though he was fired after the 2022 season. He was also the Raiders’ offensive coordinator in 2017.
Statistically, his offenses were usually productive. Downing’s worst year was in 2022, though that can be attributed to some personnel issues on offense — quarterback Ryan Tannehill was injured, and his replacements (Dobbs, Malik Willis) didn’t play particularly well. The Titans also didn’t do a great job of replacing star wide receiver A.J. Brown. But even then, that offense — which still had running back Derrick Henry — was better than the Jets’ offense this year.
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In 2021, the Titans’ offense was productive even as Tannehill threw 21 touchdowns while committing 18 turnovers, though he did add seven rushing touchdowns. That year, the Titans were 15th in scoring, 17th in total yardage, 14th in offensive EPA, 24th in passing yards and fifth in rushing yards. For the Jets’ sake, most importantly, the Titans were eighth in third-down conversion rate (43.6 percent) and fifth in red-zone touchdown percentage (63.9 percent). The Jets are last in the NFL in both categories this year.
The Titans were 23rd in third-down rate last year (36.5 percent) and sixth in the red zone (64.3 percent), both marks significantly better than the Jets in 2023. And the Raiders in 2017 were 11th on third downs (40.2 percent) and seventh in the red zone (58.8 percent).
“Look at our red-zone success the past couple years,” a Titans source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to allow him to speak freely about another team’s coach. “We were (tops) in red-zone scoring almost all of the time he was in Tennessee. He was also in charge of red-zone plays, including when he was tight ends coach (in 2019-20). He is a great QB coach and really knows the feel of the QB well, too.”
Downing is already popular in the Jets’ building. He was developing a close relationship with Rodgers during the offseason and his words have resonated more with Wilson than former quarterbacks coaches. Wilson said earlier in the season that Downing is “one of my favorite coaches I’ve been around.”
Siemian spent time in 2018 and 2020 with Downing when the latter was on coaching staffs for the Vikings and the Titans.
“He’s super smart, he knows when to keep it light, he’s got a good feel for players. He’s a great coach, he’s a great man,” Siemian said. “Everybody I know that has played for him or coached with him says all the same things about TD, so he was a big reason why I was excited about coming here.”
Boyle said Downing, who runs the Jets’ quarterback room, “does a really good job of painting the full picture.”
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“He understands what it takes to play quarterback in the NFL and he does a really good job of giving us the information we need and making it fun and not dry,” Boyle said. “Todd’s been a coordinator, he knows exactly what he’s doing, he doesn’t take it super serious every day. We have some good conversations, some good laughs, but I think the cool part about Todd is he gets what we’re trying to do on offense. He understands how to run an offensive room. The message he brings to our quarterback room every day is super special. I know all of us quarterbacks, we’re grateful for his attitude and his positivity.”
I asked Joe Rexrode, The Athletic’s senior columnist in Nashville, for some insight into Downing as a play-caller. He acknowledged the Titans’ regression in 2022 but also noted as they transitioned this season from Downing to Tim Kelly, who had success with the Houston Texans, there’s only so much an offensive coordinator can do with subpar personnel.
Rexrode’s report:
“Downing saw the Titans’ offensive line situation crumble and Brown traded away after his first season. He had Henry, pre-broken foot, for only half a season. He was too predictable at times and had poor timing on trick plays that rarely worked. But Downing’s two Titans offenses were top 10 in the NFL and better than 62 percent in the red zone. The Titans have plummeted to 32 percent this season — ahead of only the Jets.”
Saleh is unlikely to ultimately decide to fire Hackett, but if the Jets’ offense keeps struggling, it would be hard to justify not changing the offensive operation in some way. Giving Downing more responsibility might be one viable solution.
— The Athletic’s senior NFL insider Dianna Russini contributed.
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(Top photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
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