Hackett, 46, previously served as the offensive coordinator for three seasons under Matt LaFleur in Green Bay. He spent the 2025 season as a defensive analyst for the Packers, continuing to keep his football résumé active while the NFL landscape shifted around him.
His only head coaching opportunity came with the Denver Broncos in 2022, where he went 4-11 and was fired with two games remaining in his first and only season. That tenure was beset by early-game and clock-management issues, leading to personnel changes and added scrutiny.
In 2024 with the New York Jets, Hackett’s play-calling duties were stripped just five games into the regular season after head coach Robert Saleh was fired. Interim coach Jeff Ulbrich handed those duties to passing game coordinator Todd Downing, while Hackett remained on staff in an undisclosed role.
Hackett’s firing remains part of a broader conversation about early-term exits for NFL head coaches. He is cited among 33 head coaches to have lost a job since the AFL-NFL merger, with CBS Sports noting he was the fifth to be fired before the end of his first season and the second in two seasons after Urban Meyer’s Jaguars tenure in 2021.
Despite the Broncos setback, Hackett’s track record includes successful coordinations with the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Packers, where he guided the league’s highest-scoring offense in 2020 and oversaw back-to-back MVP seasons for Aaron Rodgers in 2020 and 2021.
The Cardinals’ decision to hire Hackett as offensive coordinator signals a continued bid to stabilize and modernize their offense under LaFleur’s leadership, adding another chapter to Hackett’s long-running professional arc and its quest for durability in the NFL coaching ranks.
