In Honor of the Jets' Already Bailing on Christian Hackenberg, I Present to you the Looks Like a QB Until the Ball is Snapped Team

(Jets Wire) Jets rookie quarterback Christian Hackenberg has yet to to play a snap through two preseason games. He was supposed to play on Friday night, but didn’t.

Why?

“Coach’s decision,” Todd Bowles, said after the game.

Odds are that the Jets are protecting their prized young quarterback. Throwing an inexperienced rookie into the fire with a backup offensive line isn’t always the best move. The biggest concern is why the team is being so secretive with Hackenberg.


One former Director of College Scouting has a theory.

The Jets are finding out Hackenberg can't play. Hardly a surprise. #wasted pick

— Greg Gabriel (@greggabe) August 20, 2016

Looks like the Jets are learning the hard way that Hackenberg wears the C on the Guys Who Look Like Quarterbacks Until the Ball is Snapped team.

He's the textbook definition of that guy. You can't fault them though. It's such an easy mistake to make. He has it all - size, arm strength, uniform awarness - and when you see him go through warmups, which is basically what most scouting is, he takes your breath away. Unfortunately for Christian, he has to play games.

Here are some other guys on the team. Let's start with the pros first because they're funnier because people paid them because they looked like a quarterback.

Nick Foles

Nick Foles only has two problems - wearing that stupid glove on his off hand and actually having to play quarterback. If he didn't have those two deficiencies, he would be so elite.

Now onto the Franchise that Owns the Cateogry, the Buffalo Bills.

Rob Johnson

Rob was actually a true pioneer of the position as he was the first guy who was forced into action because of an injury and parlayed one good game into like three more contracts all of which were spectacular failures. Without Rob, there would be no Matt Flynn, who of course is a hero to all of us guys out there who would love to get paid for actually doing nothing.

PS - I love that his expression on his trading card is that of utter panic and confusion because that's basically how I remember Rob Johnson, panicked and confused.

Matt Cassel

Matt Cassel is just what you're looking for in your ideal looks like a QB until he actually has to play QB candidate. He "studied under Norm Chow" when Chow was considered to be a offensive genius and not just the guy who got to call plays for the greatest collection offensive weapons college football ever saw. He also studied under Brady and Belichick, so you know he "gets it". He has unreal helmet, chin strap, and facemask awareness, and his uniform game is strong. Unfortunately, the praise stops there.

EJ Manuel

About midway through Manuel's senior season at Florida State, you could tell that someone was totally going to reach for Manuel and take him entirely too early in the Draft. It should have been a free space that the team would be the Bills.

Ryan Mallett

Another shorts and t-shirts Hall of Famer here. HUGE arm, prototypical size, strong helmet awareness, NFL-caliber towel and handwarmer placement, unfortunately for Ryno, you had to learn at least a couple of plays and actually show up. Other than that, he was awesome.

While we're on Mallett, let's just go with basically any QB who played at Michigan not named Tom Brady, who ironically the Michigan coaches spent most of his career trying not to play in favor of...

Drew Henson

John Navarre

Russell Bellomy

Before we move on to college, we would be remiss if we didn't of course mention the GOAT of the category....

Ryan Leaf

Now on to the college guys. Let's start with a fresh one.

Jeremy Johnson 

I will never stop apologizing to Nick Marshall because of how bad Johnson really was. No one will ever throw into basic cover-2 traffic like Jeremey, no one.

And finally...

Jeff Lockie

No one in college football wears a uniform better and plays worse than Jeff Lockie. No one. (See Alamo Bowl)