With the 68th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft on Friday night, the Detroit Lions selected quarterback Hendon Hooker from the University of Tennessee in the third round.
The Lions’ pick of Hooker in the third round shows the value that Detroit has in the Tennessee signal caller. Despite tearing his ACL in November against South Carolina, Hooker has been impressive on the road to recovery throughout the offseason and has a strong timeline for the 2023 NFL season.
While Hooker anticipates being ready to play at some point during the season, it’ll likely take a little bit of time for Hooker to take over as the Lions’ starting quarterback. But there is certainly an ideal route in having veteran quarterback Jared Goff pass the torch to Hooker in the near future.
Since being involved in the big Rams-Lions trade with quarterback Matthew Stafford, Goff has been the Lions’ quarterback for the past two seasons. Over that span of time, Goff has a 12-18-1 record, a 66.0 completion percentage, and has thrown 48 touchdowns compared to 15 interceptions.
Jared Goff is set to become a free agent in two years. According to NFL insider Adam Schefter, none of Goff’s money in 2024 is guaranteed.
Hooker’s first year in Detroit will be spent learning under the seven-year veteran quarterback. And, in reality, his second year likely will be as well depending on Goff’s performance over the next two seasons. The 28-year-old is only three years older than Hooker and is coming off of one of his better seasons in a while. Goff threw for 4,438 yards and 29 touchdowns with just seven interceptions over the previous 17-game season.
Once Hooker has time to fully recover from his knee injury and learn with a full year in the system, the former Tennessee quarterback should be able to compete for the backup quarterback position with Nate Sudfeld on the Lions’ roster during his second season in the league. From there, the Lions will likely have to make a choice on whether to extend Goff after 2024 or move forward with Hendon Hooker as the starting quarterback if they can’t or won’t re-sign Goff.
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Lions EVP and General Manager Brad Holmes first saw Hooker play when the Florida Gators came to Knoxville this past September. Hooker threw for 349 yards, ran for 112 yards, and accounted for three touchdowns on that day.
“They (Tennessee) run a very fast tempo offense,” Holmes said in a post-draft press conference on Friday. “Now, you guys have all heard that. You’ve also heard all the spread offense, fast, they go high tempo, all that stuff. The way [Hendon] was running it, you know, those things that I saw in that live game that you can’t see on tape. And it was his urgency and his tempo throughout the game, he was playing very, very urgent. He was playing violent in the run game. He was playing violent in the passing game. I just kind of liked the nature he was playing.”
In many ways, it was the small details that stood out to Holmes.
“He’d score a touchdown and instead of him being on the bench with the headset on or talking to the coach in the box, he’s standing on the sidelines waiting to congratulate his extra point team,” Holmes said about Hooker.
While Hooker does bring a big amount of potential energy to Detroit with him, Holmes knows that there is a process to getting the Tennessee quarterback ready to see the field. Holmes said during his press conference that while the front office feels good about Hooker’s ability to command an offense, there was an acknowledgment that the Tennessee offense under Josh Heupel does not look like what you see in the NFL on Sunday afternoons, and there will be a routine transition process.
“Obviously, he’ll be a rookie,” Holmes said. “He’s going to have to transition into playing in a different type of scheme. But we’re really excited about his upside. So how NFL-ready are a lot of quarterbacks that you acquire? And that’s just part of the normal development process. And, again, it’s just a testament of that we have the right situation for him just to come in, sit back, see how Jared [Goff] and Nate [Sudfeld] do things, and just develop.”
