Hendon Hooker said he is on track to be ready for the start of this NFL season, but the Lions likely are thinking more about 2024.
The Lions selected Hooker — who is recovering quickly from a torn ACL in his left knee suffered in November and expects to be fully cleared for action by Sept. 1 — in the third round (No. 68 overall) of the NFL draft on Friday night and set up a potential quarterback succession plan to Jared Goff.
The only other quarterback on the Detroit depth chart is Nate Sudfeld, so Hooker can slide in as the rookie No. 2 and perhaps take over as soon as the 2024 season when there is no guaranteed money remaining on Goff’s contract.
“First I want to heal, and come in and be a sponge from anyone,” Hooker said on ABC.
Hooker wasn’t about to push Goff — who resurrected his once-flailing career as a Pro Bowler in leading the Lions to a 9-8 record this past season — out the door.
Goff was the No. 1 overall pick in 2015 and led the Rams to Super Bowl LIII, in which they lost to the Patriots in February 2019, but he was traded to the Lions for Matthew Stafford before the 2021 season.
“He’s been in the league for a long time,” Hooker told local reporters of Goff, “and he’s been doing a great job of developing every year … and that’s all you can ask for. I’m definitely going to be picking his brain.”
In a well-timed Twitter video, Hooker revealed on the eve of the draft that he had progressed in his recovery to practicing dropbacks and said “it feels great to move around again.”
That strategy didn’t stop him from falling out of the first round and being the fifth quarterback taken overall.
“I haven’t had any pain,” Hooker said after his selection.
The Lions traded down from No. 55 to No. 63 and then again to No. 68, where Hooker was still available.
He visited the team facility before the draft, but was the fifth player drafted by Detroit over a busy two days.
Besides his health, the other knocks on Hooker are that he already is 25 years old, after spending three seasons at Virginia Tech and two at Tennessee, and that the spread offense he executed in college doesn’t translate to the NFL.
On the flip side, he displayed crisp accuracy by completing 68.8 percent of his passes and throwing for 58 touchdowns compared to just five interceptions in the SEC. He was the conference’s 2022 Offensive Player of the Year.
Hooker’s father, Alan, and Lions general manager Brad Holmes both played at North Carolina A&T, where Hooker’s brother also plays.