A network controller may split, via a pass-through driver, processing of transmit and/or receive network traffic handled by the network controller. Physical layer (PHY) processing and/or Medium Access Control (MAC) processing of the management traffic may be performed internally via the network controller. The pass-through driver may route at least a portion of management traffic carried via the transmit and/or receive network traffic externally to said network controller for processing. In this regard, the pass-through driver may enable routing of data and/or messages to enable performing the external processing of management traffic. An application processor may be used to perform the external processing of management traffic.