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Hendon Hooker's surgeon sends letter to NFL teams revealing ACL recovery timeline

Wade-Peeryby:Wade Peery•04/26/23
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(Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images)

We are only one day away from the 2023 NFL Draft, one of the greatest events in all of sports. Quarterbacks will always be a highly coveted position in the NFL Draft, because of the way they can immediately change a franchise. One of the most gifted players in this year’s crop is undoubtedly former Tennessee star Hendon Hooker. Plenty of teams across the league are interested in the dynamic dual-threat, but many have questions about how long it will take for him to recover from his torn ACL he suffered on Nov. 19.

On Wednesday afternoon on Twitter, ESPN’s Pete Thamel said that every team in the National Football League got a letter from Hooker’s orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Neal ElAttrache, and the letter states that “Hooker is on a timeline to be fully cleared by the first weekend of the NFL season.”

Check out Thamel’s tweet below.

Before going down with his ACL injury, Hooker completed 69.6 percent of his passes for 3,135 yards, while tossing 27 touchdowns and just two interceptions. As a runner, he had 104 carries for 430 rushing yards and five touchdowns. He was one of the nation’s leading Heisman candidates for much of the 2022 campaign and deservedly so. It’ll be exciting to watch him develop in the NFL the next few years, once he recovers from his ACL surgery.

For his entire collegiate career, Hooker put up 11,053 total yards of offense. He completed 66.9% of his passes for 8,974 passing yards, while tossing in 80 touchdowns and just throwing 12 interceptions. Hooker also added 2,079 rushing yards and 25 touchdowns on the ground.

In the 2017 cycle, Hooker was rated as the No. 25 quarterback prospect in the country, according to the On3 Industry Rankings. He played his high school football for Dudley High School (Greensboro, North Carolina).

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Josh Heupel says Hooker is in a ‘great position’ to transition to the NFL

A knock on Hooker, for some teams, is the system he played in at Tennessee. The Volunteer offense often made it look easy for their unit to rack up yards and scores last fall.

However, Vols head coach Josh Heupel says to not let that perception fool you about what all Hooker had to do and, in doing so, how that makes him a better prospect for the NFL.

“I’m not sure anybody in college football had more on their plate than Hendon did. And then you throw in the tempo we play at? You’ve got to be a quick decision-maker, you’ve got to recognize defensive structure extremely quickly,” Heupel said. “He controlled some of our run game, he controlled the RPO game. (Hendon’s) making a decision on every snap. He’s got loaded box checks, he’s got alerts, he’s got kills. He controlled the entire game on every single play. I think that puts him in a great position to be able to transition to the next level, handle all that’s coming at him, and be able to handle it at a really high level.”

On3’s Andrew Graham also contributed to this article.