After 1 1/2 seasons as Green Bay’s offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett has emerged as a head coaching candidate. The Falcons are interested in the longtime assistant, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports reports.
Team president Rich McKay is likely to pursue an interview with Hackett when he becomes available for one, per JLC, who adds the 40-year-old OC’s name has come up in “several” internal discussions to succeed Dan Quinn.
McKay is running Atlanta’s search and has a history with Hackett, who is a second-generation NFL coach. The son of former NFL OC Paul Hackett, Nathaniel broke into the NFL as a Buccaneers quality control coach during his father’s stay as the team’s QBs coach during the mid-2000s. McKay was with Tampa Bay at that point.
The Packers hired Hackett last year to work as Matt LaFleur‘s right-hand man on offense. While Aaron Rodgers certainly makes a coordinator’s job easier, the Packers rank second in offensive DVOA this season despite having gone stretches without Davante Adams and Aaron Jones. Green Bay ranked eighth last season, though the team was seventh in Mike McCarthy‘s abbreviated final season. LaFleur calls Green Bay’s plays. Hackett served as OC for the Bills and Jaguars under Doug Marrone; the Jags fired him in 2018. Only one of Hackett’s five pre-Packers offenses ranked in the top 15 in DVOA.
The Falcons are likely to be interested in Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy, La Canfora notes. They will have company in chasing Kansas City’s non-play-calling OC, who has been in place throughout Patrick Mahomes‘ tenure as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback. The Texans are also interested in Bieniemy, who has taken HC interviews in each of the past two offseasons and is expected to land a coaching job in 2021.
Bieniemy doesn’t call plays? So, he’ll need a play-caller as his OC.
Todd Haley is from Atlanta…
Just because he doesn’t call plays as OC doesn’t mean he won’t be able to later. Reich didn’t call plays in Philly.
Todd Haley Pass happy like Koetter, the guy in Philly who is actually calling the plays is doing a lousy job of it Pederson. Philly is 0-3-1 in games when a team does not rush it at least 20 times. 0-3 when they do it. the Bengals did it against them in an OT game. It boggles the mind how these consistently bad OC’s become Head Coaches, get fired as the Head Coach then get another OC playcalling get. One of the worst of them Pat Shurmur. Who I just call Putrid. Matt Ryan is no Mahomes, or Aaron Rodgers. Certain Quarterbacks can somehow will there team to win on pass happy teams. Jets, Texans, Jags, Entire NFC East, Falcons what do they have in common they are passing too much.
Falcons dropped down to 59.3% pass, Eagles at 63.7% Most of these teams give up on the run when it is working. The Rams came back against the Bills down 28-3 Running the ball. Shurmur is notorious for not running the Football he has only had a balanced offense and a winning Record 1 yr as a Playcaller. When he was about to get fired by Mike Zimmer after he took over for Norv Turner who fired himself. Scott Turner is going to get Ron Rivera fired in Washington. the Bears are 5-3 but Matt Nagy is terrible at his job. The Guys that should be getting looks as a HC are Greg Roman, the Titans OC. Brian Schotteinhemier who is letting Russell Wilson cook so far it is working he normally is a Run 1st Playcaller. But this is a Strange season. The Falcons went 7-9 last yr Koetter had 728 pass plays to 362 Runs. 66.8% pass I made a prediction if Mike Leach was an NFL Coach his teams would go 0-16. He throws it 80% of the time or more. It took Klif Kingsbury 3 or 4 games to figure out passing every down was not going to work in the NFL. For the most part the better teams Run the ball and play defense. Vikings just threw the ball 15 times won. It goes back to the Days of the Miami Dolphins with Csonka, Kiick, Morris, Warfield. and Griese. by the way Griese in the playoffs had games where he threw it less then 10 times.
Comparisons between different football eras are rarely valid for numerous reasons but Paul Zimmerman made a great observation in his iconic 1970 book “The thinking man’s guide to pro football”. With regards to play selection he stated…teams do most what they do best and vice versa. That is still true 50 years from when he wrote it.
Eric Bieniemy has got to be the focus. I do believe he is the best overall candidate to make this falcon team run smooth again.
I am not sold on Hackett. Like said in the article, Rodgers makes a OC job alot easier. He didnt accomplish anything with Jacksonville or Buffalo.
I wouldn’t mind them hiring Byron Leftwich.
I’d go all in on Bieniemy. This team keeps hiring defensive minded HCs and struggling. The strength of this team is the offense and they need an offensive minded HC that will get the most out of the players on that side of the ball.
Well if you want to win on a Consistent basis you should not be throwing the ball consistently over 60% of the time yr in and yr out. The teams with under 20 Rush attempts in games have 5 miracle wins somehow that should almost never happen. but in some cases the other team who is winning is throwing the ball constantly with big leads.
There is no magic formula of how often you should be doing this or that to achieve success. The perfect game plan is worthless without execution and a coach has to adapt each game to the players available to him through injury. Even the best coach can’t make a satin purse from a pig.