Jets RB Breece Hall’s Near-1,000-Yard Season Ended On Cringeworthy Mistake by Coaching Staff

The New York Jets assistant coaches really fumbled the bag on this one.
Jets RB Breece Hall’s Near-1,000-Yard Season Ended On Cringeworthy Mistake by Coaching Staff
Jets RB Breece Hall’s Near-1,000-Yard Season Ended On Cringeworthy Mistake by Coaching Staff /
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New York Jets running back Breece Hall finished six yards shy of 1,000 rushing yards this season—seemingly because of a coaching staffer’s bad math.

The second-year back from Iowa State registered 37 carries for 178 yards and one touchdown in Week 18’s 17—3 road win over the New England Patriots, which put him at 994 rushing yards on the year. Hall just needed just a few more yards to claim his first 1,000-yard rushing season as a pro, but he fell short for the most cringeworthy reason possible.

Jets coach Robert Saleh told reporters after the game that the coaching staff was well aware of Hall’s inching closer to the 1,000-yard mark during the season finale. Unfortunately, one of the coaches’ math was just “wrong.”

“Yeah, we were aware,” Saleh said Monday. “One of our mathematicians was wrong. We thought he got it, but then we were 10 yards off. But we were trying to get it for him on that last run; otherwise we would have taken a knee.”

Hall, who racked up 1,585 yards from scrimmage and nine total touchdowns in 2023, didn’t seem too bothered about coming up short on a 1,000-yard rushing campaign.

“I really wasn’t upset, because everybody in the league that watches me knows that I have the potential to be probably the best back in the NFL,” Hall said after Sunday’s win.

In Hall’s first healthy NFL season, after tearing an ACL in October 2022, he narrowly missed out on a career milestone.

Despite the Jets’ ineffectual offense, which ranked second to last in the NFL in total yards, Hall finished only behind the San Francisco 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey in total yards from scrimmage. In fact, Hall joins McCaffrey as the only two running backs in the past four years to record at least 950 rushing yards and 75 receptions in a single season.

The Jets (7–10) missed the playoffs for the 13th consecutive season.


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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.