INDIANAPOLIS — The chances do not seem likely.
Remote, even.
For the first time since Andrew Luck retired, the Colts have a top-five pick, and they happen to hold that valuable piece of NFL Draft real estate in a quarterback-rich draft. When the first hour of April’s draft is over, it seems highly likely that Indianapolis will have the rookie quarterback it has long coveted.
But there is a small chance, no matter how unlikely, that the Colts find themselves on the wrong side of the quarterback arms race at the top of the first round.
The scenario is simple. Three teams hold draft picks before Indianapolis; in this scenario, the Bears and Cardinals both trade their picks to teams currently below the Colts, and quarterbacks come flying off the board 1-2-3 at the start of the draft, leaving Indianapolis with the one prospect out of the top four they don’t love.
Indianapolis, however, might not have to wait another year to pick its quarterback of the future in that scenario.
If NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah is right, there is a fifth quarterback teams should be considering, and he’s almost certainly not coming off the board in the top three.
“I would actually say (there are) five (top quarterbacks), because we’ll see where Hendon Hooker lands,” Jeremiah said in his pre-Combine press conference. “I know he is older (25), but I think he has a chance to be a starter. A solid starter.”
Hooker seemed destined to climb his way into this fertile crop of first-round quarterbacks last fall.
Frustrated in three seasons at Virginia Tech, Hooker exploded onto the scene after transferring to Tennessee by completing 68% of his passes for 2,945 yards, 31 touchdowns and three interceptions. This past season, Hooker was even better, pushing those numbers to 69.6%, 3,135 yards, 27 touchdowns, two interceptions and he out-dueled Bryce Young in Tennessee’s upset win over Alabama, firing two critical downfield completions in the final second to set up the game-winning field goal.
A stumble against Georgia’s star-studded defense hurt, but Hooker still had time to get the Vols into the College Football Playoff, potentially push himself to the Heisman Trophy and his draft stock into the top tier of quarterbacks.
Two weeks after the Georgia game, Hooker tore his ACL against South Carolina.
A player whose age — Hooker turned 25 in January — was already a knock on his draft candidacy suddenly had to deal with the setback of a devastating injury.
Hooker’s recovery has gone well, and the Tennessee quarterback says he’s ahead of schedule, but he won’t begin throwing while standing up until this week, won’t do any physical workouts in the pre-draft process and won’t be 100% until training camp.
Instead of trying to fight his way into top-10 consideration, Hooker appears to be the sleeper of this draft, the quarterback trying to follow in the footsteps of Jalen Hurts.
Another afterthought in a top-heavy quarterback class, Hurts watched four quarterbacks get drafted in the first round ahead of him in 2020, heard his name called by the Eagles in the second round, and two years of development later, he’s blossomed into an MVP candidate, leading Philadelphia to a Super Bowl appearance.
Hooker, like Hurts before him, checks a lot of the intangible boxes.
He has the natural leadership and obsessive devotion to his craft that the Colts covet.
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Indianapolis general manager Chris Ballard wants a quarterback who can handle the pressure of being the face of the franchise, a leader who can make the team believe in who they have under center.
Hooker spent a lot of time thinking about both tasks at Tennessee, a rabid SEC fan base that had been starved for success for two decades before Hooker got there.
He asked another Volunteers alum, a player Colts fans know well, how to get Tennessee over the top.
Peyton Manning.
Hooker talked to the best player in Colts history before and after every game, picking his brain on football, but also on leadership.
“Anything that I ever might ask him, he’ll give me a great answer,” Hooker said. “I remember asking him and Eli: ‘What are some steps that you took to get your teammates to have that same hunger and drive that you do for the love of the process?’”
Hooker didn’t want to reveal this week what the Mannings told him.
But he did say that he put their advice into practice in the locker room before Tennessee’s breakout season in 2022.
Whichever team gets Hooker is going to get a mature player who understands the quarterback’s role in the organization; twice in Wednesday’s media availability he said his first plan in the NFL was to get to know anybody and everybody in the building as soon as he got drafted, and start figuring out what every person needs from him.
Hooker also has the obsessive nature that Shane Steichen covets, that the new Colts head coach repeatedly referenced this week as the link that binds Hurts, Philip Rivers and Justin Herbert, despite their differences in style.
An obsession he wants in his new quarterback in Indianapolis.
“I spend a lot of time watching film with coaches, by myself,” Hooker said. “My preparation is ridiculous. If I told you my whole weekly process, we’d run out of my time.”
Even without the knee injury, Hooker has other questions to answer in the pre-draft process.
Questions about Tennessee’s offense, which splits receivers out wide and tore through the SEC by scheming targets wide-open, leading to easy throws for Hooker, a lot of them on his first read.
Hooker bristles a little bit at that suggestion.
“I mean, I can’t help it if defenders can’t cover my receivers,” Hooker joked. “All of these questions about one-sided reads and stuff … we have pure progression routes. It’s not my fault my first read is getting open, but we have pre-snap looks, one-high/two-high which side, double-footwork combo. We have pure progression with an alert. Any of these questions, they’re cool and all, but you really need to study our offense and watch the film.”
Anybody who watches the film, Hooker believes, will see a quarterback asked to make calls at the line of scrimmage, asked to audible, asked to make longer throws than most of the screen-heavy offenses that dominate college football these days.
“I can make every throw,” Hooker said. “The way that we run our offense, the wide splits, those are all grown-man throws. I’m not throwing five-yard outs, those are all big-boy balls.”
At least one NFL draft analyst agrees.
“I'll just say, when you are evaluating him, the accuracy, the decision-making, the poise, the athleticism to be able to move around and create with his legs to throw as well as to run, all those things are all there,” Jeremiah said before the Combine. “If you told me you drafted Hendon Hooker in the second round, and he is your starting quarterback for seven, eight really good years, I think you take it.”
Philadelphia doesn’t seem to regret missing out on the top four quarterbacks in the draft in 2020.
Hooker’s hoping he can make another team feel the same way.
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03-06-2023, 03:54 PM
Peyton Manning protégé Hendon Hooker's the sleeper quarterback of the NFL draft
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