Jets confident Breece Hall will be ready for Week 1: ‘Looks freaking good’
The Jets can’t wait to see running back Breece Hall back on the field, and they don’t expect to be waiting long.
Head coach Robert Saleh said he is “very optimistic” Hall will be ready for the Week 1 game against the Bills.
Hall is coming back from a torn ACL in his left knee, an injury he suffered in October.
“I don’t want to jinx it,” Saleh said. “The kid’s already hitting over 22 [mph] on the GPS. He looks freaking good.”
Hall, who turned 22 on Wednesday, did not want to make any promises about when he’ll return but said his progress has been good.
“I’ll be ready when I’ll be ready,” Hall said. “Obviously, I hope I’m ready [for Week 1], but you never know. I’m just taking it a week at a time and letting my knee do what it does.
“Everybody wants me to be ready for Week 1, but at the end of day, you have to come back when you feel ready. Until I feel like I’m ready, I’ll just know.”
Hall said he began making cuts while running two weeks ago and that has him feeling encouraged.
“I’ve had glimpses in these past two weeks of me cutting and just running around where I’m starting to feel like my old self again,” Hall said.
Saleh said Hall will be limited during training camp, but only because the Jets are taking it slow with Hall.
“I feel like he won’t need to be limited in training camp even though we still will just to be conscientious and cautious with him,” Saleh said. “But he looks awesome.”
Saleh said Hall is itching to get back on the field.
“Again, he’s one of those kids we’ve had to hold back from him because there’s a process,” Saleh said. “It’s weird. As a player, you don’t want to go too fast coming back from an ACL. You have to be able to balance it out with the strength. He looks strong. He looks powerful. He’s learning. I’m excited for him to get back out on the field.”
Hall rushed for 463 yards on 80 carries and scored four touchdowns as a rookie before the knee injury ended his season in Week 7.
He looked like he was on his way to being a contender for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, an award his teammate Garrett Wilson ended up winning.
Though Hall enjoys busting on Wilson about who would have won the award if he had not hurt his knee, he said he’s not dwelling on what might have been last season.
“I still give Garrett crap all the time about if I wouldn’t have gotten hurt,” Hall said. “I don’t really care about that stuff anymore. All I can do is look forward and just try to work myself back to being the same Breece that was making all those plays last year.”
Hall, during his comeback, has leaned on some other running backs who have gone through ACL injuries.
He said Giants star Saquon Barkley reached out to him right after the injury, and the two have had long conversations and text voice memos back and forth.
He also has talked to Christian McCaffrey of the 49ers and Derrick Henry of the Titans.
He said they have helped him deal with the mental side of the injury.
When Hall does return, he will be taking handoffs from a different quarterback.
Hall said he and Aaron Rodgers have clicked and like to joke with each other.
Hall went to a Rangers playoff game with Rodgers at Madison Square Garden.
“He said it was just cool for him to walk around like a normal person because he wasn’t able to do that for the past million years,” Hall said.
Entering his sophomore season, Hall won’t put any predictions out there about what he expects statistically.
But he still believes he return to the form he showed early in his rookie season.
“My expectation is always to be the best me I can be, just knowing that I’m one of the most dynamic playmakers on the team if I’m fully healthy,” Hall said. “Me, expecting to be back to myself at some point, I just really want to be that same Breece.”
