Christian Hackenberg: The Mystery Man of the NFL Draft

STATE COLLEGE, Penn. — Christian Hackenberg will never forget those long, languid Sundays in the autumn of 2013. Those were, he realizes now, some of his happiest college days.

Surrounded by a few of his football buddies, Christian would sit in his dorm room at Penn State and watch the New England Patriots. Leaning in close to the bluish glow of the television screen, Christian would listen carefully as Tom Brady called the signals at the line of scrimmage. Hearing Brady’s cadence before the ball was snapped, Christian excitedly would tell his friends the precise play New England was about to run.

He’s checking to a Sluggo Seam! He’s calling a draw! He’s throwing a slant!

At first, his teammates rolled their eyes at the fresh-faced, apple-cheeked quarterback. But then, seconds later, the Patriots would execute the exact play that Christian had divined. This happened over and over as they all feasted on pizza.

“We ran the Patriots playbook basically verbatim my freshman year,” Hackenberg said. “I watched more tape of Tom Brady than probably anyone outside of the New England organization. I loved the fact that it was a quarterback-driven system and that I had the ability to change things at the line, just like Brady.”

It was in this Patriots system, taught to Christian by then-head coach Bill O’Brien, that the 6’4″, 223-pound Hackenberg flourished as a freshman. Named the starter after preseason camp, Hackenberg in his first three games completed 71.7 percent of his passes for 851 yards. He was twice named Big Ten Freshman of the Week and was voted the Big Ten Freshman of the Year.

But it was the way he played that seduced NFL scouts.

He displayed the arm strength of a young Jay Cutler and the pocket presence of a young Brady, allowing himself to be sacked only 21 times in 12 games. He needed to improve his touch on intermediate routes and long throws, but he exhibited such arresting promise that it was taken as an article of faith among NFL scouts that, if he kept improving and turned pro after his junior season, he would be a top-five pick in the 2016 draft, if not the No. 1 overall selection.

“He had all the characteristics of a future franchise NFL quarterback as a freshman,” said one longtime NFC scout. “There wasn’t a throw he couldn’t make, his accuracy was good and he was clearly the leader of the team as an 18-year-old kid. Older guys followed him and he was a film junkie. The kid almost seemed too good to be true.”

Christian Hackenberg will never forget those long, languid Sundays in the autumn of 2014. Those were, he realizes now, some of his most unhappy college days.

He’d spend the mornings in the football complex watching the horror show that was his performance in the previous day’s game. Four starting offensive linemen had departed from the ’13 team—two guards were now former defensive linemen—and Hackenberg spent most fall Saturdays running for his life. He also was without his top two receivers from the previous year, Allen Robinson and Brandon Felder, and during the ’14 season, his callow wideouts struggled to break open.

He was also now piloting the spread offense of head coach James Franklin, who replaced O’Brien—the man Christian had come to State College to play for, the man he viewed almost like a second father—after O’Brien left for the Houston Texans.

Franklin’s offense was tailor-made for a fleet-footed, zone-read quarterback, not a classic pocket passer like Christian. The sophomore signal-caller also no longer had as much freedom to change plays at the line of scrimmage.

Defenses teed off on Hackenberg like bulls to a waving red flag; he was sacked 43 times, tied for third most in the nation. In response, a shell-shocked Hackenberg forced throws into coverage and launched prayers off his back foot. More worrisome to NFL scouts, his line of sight shifted: His eyes, especially late in the season, were more trained on the defensive linemen chasing after him than on his receivers sprinting down the field.

As the losses and interceptions mounted—Penn State would finish 2-6 in the Big Ten and Hackenberg would throw 15 picks—Christian became increasingly withdrawn. On the sideline he often stood apart from his teammates with a distant stare carved on his face. In postgame press conferences his mood could be sullen as he pulled his baseball cap low and gave clipped answers to reporters. NFL scouts took note of a possible attitude problem.

During the week, Christian didn’t want to leave his on-campus apartment. He stopped returning phone calls from his parents, high school friends and former coaches. And on Sunday afternoons he typically watched NFL action alone, still replaying his own game from Saturday in his mind, throw-by-throw, play-by-play, pondering what he could have done better.  

“I wanted to create plays that weren’t there as a sophomore and a lot of times it washed out and ended badly,” Christian said. “I struggled to accept the fact that there were things that I couldn’t control. I wanted to make perfect plays and that would lead to mistakes. I got very frustrated with myself. It got to the point where I became an introvert.”

On the eve of the 2016 NFL draft, these two images of Christian Hackenberg—the successful, confident freshman diagnosing Tom Brady’s plays versus the struggling, shattered sophomore who holed up in the Nittany Apartments complex—distill the quandary now facing NFL teams when it comes to the former Penn State quarterback. Indeed, according to many scouts, Hackenberg is the greatest mystery in the 81st annual NFL player selection meeting that will be held in Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre April 28-30.

Is he worth a first-round pick, a player who one day could become the face of a winning franchise? Or is he a mid-round project, a quarterback who will need time to regain his confidence and refine his mechanics before he’d be capable of just becoming a serviceable backup?

“There is no doubt in my mind that Christian Hackenberg can be an elite player in this league if he’s coached properly,” said one NFL head coach. “He developed a lot of bad habits in his last two years at Penn State. He got beat up really bad, and as a consequence, his footwork regressed and his throwing mechanics got all messed up. That is what happens to young quarterbacks who get the s–t beat out of them.”

But that same coach said if Hackenberg sits for two years, learns and regains that lost muscle memory that he started developing as a freshman, “he could be damn special. He’s got all the arm talent, he’s got the desire, he’s got the work ethic and he’s got the charisma to be a leader. He just needs to relearn a lot of things and forget a lot of bad habits. This is hard to do, but it can be done, especially with a kid like Christian who wants it so bad.”

The process of rebuilding Christian Hackenberg already has begun. Last Jan. 5 he moved into a house in Dana Point, California, to train with Jordan Palmer, the younger brother of Carson who played parts of six seasons in the NFL as a backup quarterback. During his first 10 days in Orange County, Hackenberg didn’t throw a single pass. Instead, he and Palmer watched every play from his Penn State career, dissecting the three to five seconds from snap to whistle like detectives in search of clues.

Hackenberg’s biggest problem, Palmer believes, was his poor starting point on many of his throws. Sometimes the relentless defensive pressure caused Hackenberg to begin his throwing motion from an unorthodox angle, but other times it was as if he simply forgot the fundamentals first taught to him by his dad in their backyard when Christian was five.

For one week in late January, Palmer had his pupil play the role of his older brother. During the six days that the Arizona Cardinals prepared to play the Carolina Panthers in the NFC Championship Game, Hackenberg mirrored Carson’s preparation, from film study to drills to even nutrition.

Hackenberg spoke to Carson on a conference call. He spent hours diagramming Cardinals plays on a dry erase board as his coach—Jordan—bombarded him with questions. In every way possible, Jordan simulated an NFL game week for Christian.

During that week, hoping to improve his accuracy, Christian started many mornings at 5:45 a.m. with Jordan focusing on his footwork. One drill had Palmer flipping a ball on the ground and Hackenberg chasing it, picking it up and then quickly hopping into the proper throwing position. Over and over, as the morning sun rose into the California sky, Christian ran after the bouncing ball as if chasing a chicken, grabbing it, setting his feet and holding the ball with two hands near his right ear.

In spite of the work, Christian struggled with accuracy at the NFL combine in …

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