Hawks was clearly set up for a spiral after the PLF War arc. Imagine, if the story followed through with Endeavor dying, the one who is left standing as the public face of the heroes is Hawks (who by the way was the brain behind the planning of the entire raid. Endeavor was just muscles).

I have no doubt that originally, the HPSC was set to throw Hawks under the bus to make him take the blame for the failed raid and the lives lost. I think also Hawks - having lost his quirk (which I think was clearly the intention originally) and being made a scapegoat was going to end up in Tartarus with a grudge against his handlers.

It would have made way more sense for a quirkless Hawks to be tempted to take a quirk from AFO that could make him fly again than it did Nagant. From then on, the story is pretty much the same - Hawks goes out to capture Deku, Deku fights him. And then either he returns to the "good side" or actually dies during the save attempt - bringing him a tragic ending and a much-need failure for Deku that he could stand up from.

Hori chickening out of this direction really destroyed Hawks as a character. Made him from a really compelling moral gray into another bland optimist, plus chained him to become Endeavor's cheerleader which imho served neither or their characters, nor the previously established much more interesting dynamic they had.