Can Jets evaluate Christian Hackenberg without regular season action? Todd Bowles says …

Can Jets evaluate Christian Hackenberg without regular season action? Todd Bowles says …
Christian Hackenberg is entering Year 2 with the Jets. (Ed Mulholland | USA TODAY Sports)
Christian Hackenberg is entering Year 2 with the Jets. (Ed Mulholland | USA TODAY Sports)

FLORHAM PARK — The Jets pretty much have to play quarterback Christian Hackenberg in the regular season this year, in order to get a proper evaluation of him, right?

You’d think so. But coach Todd Bowles doesn’t view things that way, even after Hackenberg didn’t play in the 2016 regular season.

“I think you can play in the preseason games,” Bowles said Tuesday, when the Jets began their three-day minicamp. “The preseason games earn you the right to [play in] regular season games. You don’t just stick him in. And you get a fair amount of evaluation in practice.

3 stars from Day 1 of Jets minicamp, including QB Christian Hackenberg

“You have to combine all of that — between the classroom, the learning, the camaraderie, the preseason, the production, how you do things, how you transfer things, how you relate things. You can [make an] evaluation that way. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in a regular season game.”

Ideally, Hackenberg would perform well…