Hackenberg was impressed by Detroit’s game plan, or something.

It wasn’t a great Saturday for former Penn State quarterback and eternally confused human being Christian Hackenberg. Hackenberg—who is only saved from being the most hapless soul to command a NFL offense on account of Jared Goff’s presence in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum—got put through the wood chipper by Cornelius Washington and threw an immaculate reception to the Ford Field turf during the course of the first half of the preseason tilt between the Jets and Lions. Afterwards, he had fair words for the Lions, although they were mostly mistaken.

Hackenberg praised the Lions during the post-game interviews for doing their homework and preparing to face Gang Green.

“I thought it was a good learning experience and think Detroit did a really good job watching the tape from last week. They mixed up the looks I thought. A lot of credit to them and I thought overall just a very good experience.”

That’s pretty high praise, but it didn’t exactly mesh quite right. Justin Rogers of the Detroit News noticed that a quote from Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford seemed to directly contradict what Hackenberg was complimenting the Lions on:

“We don’t game plan a ton for these guys. We don’t watch a ton of tape. Those offensive linemen don’t study the defensive linemen like they would in a regular game week.”

There you have it. The Lions didn’t bother to study up on the Jets at all, but Hackenberg was so impressed he thought they had done so. I suppose that’s high praise for the Lions regardless, but to put it another way:

Hackenberg might be onto something here. After all, if you can convince the world that you’ve done your research and studied up, then you’ll pass whatever’s in front of you with flying colors. I think that’s the moral, at least.

The Lions are playing New England next and there’s been no word if there’s going to be any tape involved this time.