Detroit Lions will reportedly activate QB Hendon Hooker during 2023 season

Detroit Lions third-round rookie QB Hendon Hooker will reportedly work his way onto the 53-man roster at some point in 2023.

A couple months ago, Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell referred to rookie quarterback Hendon Hooker’s rookie season as a “redshirt year.” That led many to speculate that the third-round selection would spend all of 2023 on the Non-Football Injury list as he rehabs from a torn ACL suffered toward the end of his final season at Tennessee.

However, a report from Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press suggests that Hooker will eventually come off the NFI list and join the 53-man roster.

“A Lions source familiar with the thought process on Hooker said that is not in the Lions’ plans (to sit him the entire season) and emphasized Hooker is expected to join the roster once healthy,” Birkett wrote this week.

Hooker has been getting significant work in after each training camp practice after being cleared to drop back and pass to members of the Lions training staff back in June. Since then, he’s been slowly ramping up his progress, now running at a good pace, and going through a pretty thorough post-practice workout.

“We’ve got our training staff, our strength coaches that take him through a workout, and it’s really scripted,” Campbell explained. “And so it’s our plays, it’s our reads and so he goes through the drops, makes the play-call, goes through the drops, throws, and then has his sprint and he takes it down the field.”

It’s unclear how close Hooker is to returning to the roster, but the Lions will have to face their first decision by next Tuesday, when the team must cut down their roster to 53 players by 4 p.m. ET. If Hooker isn’t ready, he’ll remain on the NFI list and stay there for at least the first four games of the season. As of last week, Campbell said they had not even talked about roster plans for the rookie quarterback.

“(General manager) Brad (Holmes) and I haven’t even discussed him at this point,” Campbell said. “Once we start hearing from (Lions Director of Player Health & Performance Brett Fischer) Fisch and those guys (are) like, ‘Hey this guy’s coming on,’ we get the okay you guys may have a decision to make sooner than later, but we’re not even going to worry about it right now.”

Complicating Detroit’s quarterback decisions is the recent addition of Teddy Bridgewater. The veteran quarterback seems certain to win the backup quarterback job, but Detroit must face a difficult decision on whether to keep a third quarterback on the roster. Bridgewater is new and still acclimating to a new set of receivers and new verbiage for the offense, while Nate Sudfeld has struggled to take care of the ball both in practice and the preseason.

Detroit also proposed a new emergency quarterback rule that would allow teams to designate an extra quarterback on gameday while also technically keeping them inactive. That quarterback does have to be on the 53-man roster, though. Despite that rule being adopted, Campbell said that won’t impact how they assemble their initial 53-man roster next week.

“I don’t think that’s a factor into what we’re going to do with the roster,” Campbell said. “I think, for us, is it worth keeping three quarterbacks? (That’s) number one. Number two, where are we at with the rest of the roster? You want to do that, but yet who are we losing to do that, or vice versa? Is quarterback three better than corner four? And then some of it, can we get these guys on practice squad? How does that affect how you build a roster out? But no, I don’t feel like that has a bearing. Like just because we presented the rule like we have to keep three quarterbacks, that’s not a must.”