Hendon Hooker leaves Lions' preseason opener vs. Giants with apparent injury

Hendon Hooker left Thursday’s preseason game against the New York Giants with an apparent injury. He headed to the locker room after the third quarter, and Nate Sudfield returned at quarterback afterward.

Thursday night marked Hooker’s first appearance for the Detroit Lions after missing his rookie season as he recovered from a torn ACL. He suffered the injury late in his senior season at Tennessee, and the Lions took him in the third round of the NFL Draft planning for him to miss the 2023 campaign.

It’s unclear the nature of Hooker’s injury, based on the NFL Network broadcast, and the Lions don’t provide injury updates during preseason games. However, Hooker trucked a defender to pick up a first down late in the third quarter, and that could’ve been a factor in his injury.

At the time of Hooker’s injury, the Giants held a 14-3 lead with six minutes to go – and that held as the final. During his limited action, Hooker completed five of nine passes for 36 yards as he took over for Sudfield, who struggled mightily.

Hooker put together an impressive 2022 season at Tennessee and generated some Heisman Trophy buzz before his season-ending injury against South Carolina. He threw for 3,135 yards and 27 touchdowns over 11 games to go with 430 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the ground. He had some first-round potential in the draft, but ultimately fell to the third round after getting hurt.

Dan Campbell shared goals for Hendon Hooker earlier in the offseason

As for what expectations are for Hooker in 2024, Dan Campbell previously said the goal for training camp was for him to be familiar with the offense. That would give him an inside track at the QB2 spot behind Jared Goff, who signed a lucrative contract extension this offseason to cement his status as the starter moving forward.

“We need to feel like by the end of camp this guy can, he can run this offense,” Campbell said in late May, via MLive.com’s Kyle Meinke. “He’s somebody we know that, man, we can play the game a certain way with him. We know he’s going to be able to process the information, he’s going to get us in the right play, and he’s somebody that we can — man, he’s going to keep the ship afloat. That’s it.

“We don’t need him to come in and win a game. You just want to feel like, ‘All right.’ So obviously he’s going to need to take another step up.”