Dan Campbell isn't afraid to admit it: the Lions are scarred by the avalanche of injuries that buried their defense last season. And that could sway a few of their roster decisions ahead of cut day next Tuesday, including a pretty big one involving Hendon Hooker.
Kyle Allen is firmly established as QB2 as training camp winds to a close. The question is whether the Lions will cut Hooker and risk losing the former third-round pick to another team or keep him on the 53-man roster as QB3 over a better depth player at a different position.
"That’s exactly what it is," Campbell said Thursday when asked about Hooker's potential place on the team. "If you do that, you lose depth with the D-line, or O-line, or a receiver, or a defensive back, or a linebacker. You get the point. So, how important is that relative to the other positions?
"And what’s hard is, look, you can call it what you want, when you have a year like we did last year, you get affected a little bit by it, it has an effect on the way you think and depth, depth, depth. We gotta make sure that we have the depth."
Drafted by Brad Holmes and the Lions in 2023, Hooker is essentially coming off his rookie season after spending his first year in Detroit rehabbing a torn ACL he suffered at Tennessee. He has shown real signs of growth in camp this year, but has not translated that into preseason games. Allen has been the much better quarterback of the two.
The Lions are still invested in Hooker's development just two years removed from drafting him, but they're also trying to win the Super Bowl this season.
If they decide the roster is better served by bolstering their depth on, say, the defensive line, than rostering a third quarterback who's highly unlikely to see game action, it might spell the end of Hooker's time in Detroit.