SAN FRANCISCO — Somehow, Nathaniel Hackett is going to be an NFL team’s offensive coordinator once again.

Proving that the NFL is more about who you know than what you know, Hackett will join the Arizona Cardinals as an offensive coordinator on new head coach Mike LaFleur’s staff.

LaFleur is expected to call plays, so Hackett won’t handle that role, making his coordinator job similar to the one he held in Green Bay from 2019-21. Hackett called plays for at least parts of eight seasons; just once in those years — with Jacksonville in 2017 — did he have an offense that finished in the top half of the NFL in either scoring or total offense.

The Packers’ head coach then and now, of course, is Matt LaFleur, Mike’s older brother. And Mike LaFleur was Hackett’s predecessor as offensive coordinator with the New York Jets from 2021-22 before Hackett handled that role in the 2023 and 2024 seasons, a pair of disastrous campaigns that led to him returning to Green Bay as a defensive assistant in 2025.

Ah, the circle of NFL life.

Mike LaFleur hopes that this turn for Nathaniel Hackett as a non-play-calling offensive coordinator works out as well as his stint with the Packers, when Green Bay had offenses that ranked in the NFL’s top 10 twice during his three seasons in the position. Of course, those two seasons — 2020 and 2021 — saw quarterback Aaron Rodgers walk away with NFL MVP honors in both campaigns.

Hackett parlayed those seasons into the Broncos’ head-coaching position in 2022. “Disaster” doesn’t begin to describe Hackett’s 11-plus months on the job.

Every paradigm-busting idea he tried exploded in his face, and by the first month of the regular season, the team couldn’t even execute basic operations like getting snaps off before the expiration of the play clock without help from the fans.

By Week 11, the offensive struggles led Hackett to hand off play-calling to assistant Klint Kubiak. Things have improved over the years for Kubiak, who now stands poised to assume the Las Vegas Raiders’ reins. For Hackett, meanwhile, the arc has spiraled.

IT HASN’T GOTTEN ANY BETTER FOR NATHANIEL HACKETT SINCE LEAVING THE BRONCOS

Exasperated by a cascading series of pratfalls that culminated in a Christmas Day embarrassment in Los Angeles, CEO Greg Penner mercifully sacked Nathaniel Hackett with two games remaining in the 2022 campaign, allowing the long-winded-but-well-meaning Jerry Rosburg to quickly restore a sense of order and competent offense in just 13 days on the job.

Hackett subsequently took the offensive-coordinator reins of the Jets, allowing him to reunite with Rodgers. But the veteran tore his Achilles tendon just four snaps into the 2023 season, and the Jets collapsed, finishing with the No. 31 offense in the NFL.

Rodgers’ return in 2024 didn’t help Hackett much; although the Jets’ offensive numbers improved, the team stripped him of play-calling duties. He coached out the season and then moved on to Green Bay as a defensive analyst.

Last month, Miami hired him to coach quarterbacks under new head coach Jeff Hafley, hired from the Packers after a stint as defensive coordinator. Again, it’s who you know. But now a higher role comes along, and Hackett will pivot west.