The Detroit Lions saw quarterback Hendon Hooker take a huge leap forward in his second preseason game on Saturday, and he might have just secured the backup quarterback job over Nate Sudfeld as a result.
Hooker completed 12-of-15 passes for 150 yards and added a rushing touchdown in the winning effort. After throwing completions on his first two passes, Hooker went 12-for-13 the rest of the way and put the Lions in position to win the game with a field goal in the closing seconds.
But it wasn't just about the numbers alone with Hooker. He also looked the part of an NFL quarterback after showing poise in the pocket and making accurate throws to his pass-catchers.
"It’s huge," Hooker said after the game, per Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. "Like I’ve said before, it’s all about repetition and getting put in different situations and seeing how I handle them. It’s good to have a little adversity sometimes to make us stronger for later on."
Head coach Dan Campbell was particularly impressed with the way Hooker handled adversity, and more specifically the fumbled handoff the second-year signal-caller was part of in the red zone in the fourth quarter.
Hooker was able to bounce back and got the Lions in field goal range on the next drive to win the game.
"Some of the biggest part of this is the mistakes he's making and to have to come back in, or the next play, he's got to put the last one behind and get to the next play. Or put the last drive behind him, it wasn't good and he's got to go back in," Campbell said. "Ultimately the drive before the winner, we messed some things up. He made a few errors — more than a few. But then he comes back the last drive, he’s got to put it — 'Hey man, put that behind you.' And he cleans it up. He cleans it up, he moves the football, he learns from it and so that was excellent, man. So every time he gets a chance to take the reps and grow from it, we're going to be better off. He's going to be better off."
"It's all encompassing," Campbell added. "It's the experience of it. Not only just running the show, and I think people forget sometimes just to be able to get the call from (offensive coordinator) Ben (Johnson), get the huddle, get 'em in there, get some urgency, but yet have enough composure and enough of a memory to know, 'All right, this is the play. All right, I've got to be able to articulate what that play is back to my team to where they can understand me, but there needs to be some urgency in what I do, and then get up there and execute it.' So anytime you do those, those are big."
While Sudfeld wasn't terrible in preseason Week 2, he definitely wasn't the better quarterback of the two and failed to outshine Hooker once again. That should put the Tennessee product in the driver's seat for the backup job going into preseason Week 3, although Saturday's performance might have been enough to seal the deal.