The New York Jets remain hopeful dynamic running back Breece Hall will be ready to kick off the 2023 regular season after last year's ACL tear.
"I'm very optimistic on that one," head coach Robert Saleh said on Wednesday. "I don't want to jinx it. (Knocks on wood) I mean, the kid's already hitting over 22 (mph) on the GPS, so he looks frickin' good."
Hall said later he doesn't know when he'll return from the injury.
"I'll be ready when I'll be ready," Hall told reporters on Wednesday. "Honestly, I hope I'm ready [by 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 -- myself, the coaches, my teammates -- everybody wants me to be ready for Week 1, but at the end of the day, you've got to come back when you feel like you're ready., So until I feel like I'm ready, then I'll just know."
The 2022 second-round pick shot out of the gate last season, providing Gang Green with a home-run threat out of the backfield. Hall rushed for 463 yards and four touchdowns on 80 carries and added 218 receiving yards on 19 catches with a TD in seven games before suffering the knee injury in October.
"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 of his recovery. "At the end of the day, I feel like when I get back, I'll still be me."
The Jets will bring Hall along slowly during the early portions of offseason work, including current OTAs, with the hope that he's closer to full-go for training camp in July.
"He looks good," Saleh said. "Again, he's one of those kids that we've had to kind of hold back from him because -- it's weird to say it, you don't want to heal too fast on an ACL. You've got to be able to balance it out with strength. He looks strong. He looks powerful. He's learning. I'm excited for him to get back on the field. I feel like he won't need to be limited during training camp, even though we still will just to be conscientious and cautious with him, but he looks awesome."
With Aaron Rodgers on board and a revamped wide receiver corps, the Jets' offense would be magnitudes more explosive if Hall is ready for Week 1 and doesn't show ill effects from the type of knee injury that has curtailed other running backs for more than a year.
