Hendon Hooker is fluid on the football subject and mobile in NFL assembly rooms, where he’s been hurdling issues about his age, wellness and playing design and style.
The 25-calendar year-aged former Tennessee quarterback who tore the ACL in his left knee a lot less than 5 months in the past has expended his predraft visits with teams explaining the complexity of the Volunteers’ seemingly simplistic spread offense. It’s 1 that has raised fears about how his activity will translate to the pros, where he’ll have to study the overall area and not lock in on his principal focus on so substantially.
“I can make any throw,” Hooker explained. “The way we run our offense, the large splits, these are all grown-guys throws. I’m not throwing any 5-garden outs. Individuals are all big-boy balls.”
Hooker pounces at inquiries about how he’ll do in a pro fashion offense.
“I just cannot assistance that defenders cannot guard my receivers. My position is to get them the ball,” Hooker explained. “A great deal of these concerns about a person-sided reads, we have pure progressions and routes. It’s not my fault that my very first read through is having open.”
And really don’t be fooled, Hooker included, there’s a good deal likely on underneath that interesting demeanor of his that helps make it appear to be like he’s just leisurely participating in capture.
Hooker figures to be the fifth quarterback picked in the NFL draft later this month, behind absolutely sure-hearth first-rounders Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Will Levis and Anthony Richardson.
“I truly like Hendon Hooker,” NFL Community draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah claimed, citing his precision, acumen and adjustability.
Hooker’s age — he’ll turn 26 by the close of his rookie season — and wellness — he tore the ACL in his left knee in a activity from South Carolina on Nov. 19 — have numerous predicting that he’ll slide into the second spherical. But Jeremiah has him heading to the Vikings at No. 23 in his hottest mock draft.
The 2022 SEC Offensive Player of the Year spent three decades at Virginia Tech and the past two at Tennessee.
Patrick Mahomes is just two a long time older than Hooker but has previously played 6 NFL seasons and received a pair of Super Bowl rings. Jalen Hurts is 24 and has three years’ NFL expertise and a Super Bowl overall look.
“If you instructed me you draft Hendon Hooker in the next spherical and he is your setting up quarterback or 7, 8 really excellent years, I feel you just take it,” Jeremiah claimed. “I think Hendon Hooker has a probability to be a real worth pick for anyone.”
Hooker could close up sitting a year at the rear of an set up starter, much too, one thing that would assuage any concerns about his surgically fixed knee.
The far more urgent problem is how Hooker’s recreation will translate to the subsequent level immediately after functioning in Tennessee’s super spread offense, the place he had to get the ball out lickety-split and hardly ever came off his to start with read through.
Placing that design and style apart, “I’ll just say when you are evaluating him, the precision, the selection-generating, the poise, the athleticism to be capable to shift about and produce with his legs, to toss as effectively as to operate, all those things are all there,” Jeremiah siad.
At Tennessee, Hooker was what scouts phone a “half-discipline reader.”
ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay figures that was extra a product or service of Josh Heupel’s offense than a flaw in Hooker’s video game.
“The experiences from each individual staff I’ve talked to about him is he’s accomplished a excellent job finding on the board and understands concepts and can go back again to his Virginia Tech playbook and recite all the things like he was participating in in it yesterday,” McShay claimed. “That’s part of why it is so vital with the quarterbacks to have personal time, personal workout routines, non-public conferences, to actually analyze their mind and how they study.”
Hooker relished displaying off his football acumen on the white boards.
“Any time I wander previous a mirror and there is an Expo marker, I’m likely to draw on the mirror,” Hooker mentioned. “That’s just anything I take pleasure in doing mainly because I appreciate the video game of football.”
Heupel said the offense Hooker was requested to operate at Tennessee was not as simplistic as it seemed.
“I’m not confident anybody in faculty football has much more on their plate than Hendon does,” Heupel stated. “Then, you toss in the tempo that we engage in at, you have received to be a swift conclusion-maker, you have obtained to realize defensive construction extremely swiftly. … He controlled the complete activity on each and every solitary enjoy. I feel that places him in a fantastic posture to be capable to transition at the upcoming level and tackle all that’s coming at him.”
Heupel mentioned the intangibles this sort of as leadership and charisma are what will make Hooker somebody’s franchise quarterback.
“I’ve never been all over anyone that’s been a stronger or far more impactful chief than Hendon Hooker is,” Heupel explained. “Our method is not where it’s at currently until Hendon is a component of our locker home.”
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AP Professional Soccer Author Teresa Walker in Nashville contributed.
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