Getty Image / Rich Schultz
Last week, new Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton gave a pretty brutal assessment of the job his predecessor did last season.
He called Nathaniel Hackett’s performance last season one of the worst coaching jobs in NFL history.
As a result of that comment and some other interesting tidbits from that Payton interview, members of the New York Jets have been jumping to the defense of their new offensive coordinator.
Aaron Rodgers has been very outspoken in support of his OC, who he worked with in Green Bay.
Now another former Packers player has also shared his support for Hackett.
Allen Lazard defended Hackett while speaking to the media yesterday and revealed an interesting tidbit while doing so.
Lazard said that Hackett has players make animal noises to help them remember plays.
"He gets a room of grown men to make animal noises"
Allen Lazard explains further on Nathaniel Hackett: pic.twitter.com/zZfcDkcRF7
— Jets Videos (@snyjets) July 31, 2023
“He gets a room of grown men to make animal noises,” Lazard said. “It may not make too much sense, but it’s pertaining to the play.
Whether it’s a name. Whether it’s a whale, a kangaroo, a pony, a shark. You’d have to sit in the meetings to hear it, but he’s the only person who can get grown men to do something like that.”
It sounds like an odd approach to coaching, but if it’s something he has done in previous stops then it appears to work for him.
While Nathaniel Hackett didn’t have much success as a head coach, he has been a pretty good OC in the past.
He was able to succeed for a year with Blake Bortles as his quarterback in Jacksonville.
Then he turned the Packers into one of football’s best offenses as Aaron Rodgers won back to back MVPs.
Now he’ll have a chance to work with Rodgers again and maybe the key to him helping the New York Jets become a real contender will be some animal noises.