Lions 2025 training camp preview: Can Hendon Hooker stick as QB2?

With Lions training camp on the horizon, we are bringing back our camp preview series. Quarterbacks are the first position group on the docket.

As we inch closer to the Detroit Lions' 2025 training camp, we are bringing back our roster preview series to help prepare you for all the end-of-summer festivities. If you’re not familiar with this series, we guide you position-by-position through the roster, examining the starting, reserve, and specialty roles, which players are competing for which jobs, and project how the Lions will approach each situation.

In this initial installment, we turn our attention to the quarterback position, speculate on current and future roles, and discuss how many of the reserves make the 53-man roster.

Setting the table

The Lions ended the 2024 season with four quarterbacks under contract. Starter Jared Goff and reserve Hendon Hooker remain under contract in 2025, Teddy Bridgewater returned to coaching high school football in Florida, and practice squader Jake Fromm signed a futures contract in January. When the free agency period opened, the Lions signed veteran Kyle Allen to a one-year contract, and just over a month later, released Fromm from his deal.

Roster construction

During the Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell regime, the Lions have taken slightly different approaches to the quarterback position in each season. However, the underlying philosophy has remained consistent: keep two quarterbacks on the active roster and one on the practice squad during the regular season, while also maintaining the flexibility to add another quarterback to the active roster late in the season and playoffs for emergency purposes.

Let’s take a look at what they’ve done in the previous four seasons:

• 2021: The Lions kept three quarterbacks on the active roster, including Goff, David Blough, and Tim Boyle, mainly due to the NFL’s COVID restrictions.
• 2022: Goff and Nate Sudfeld were on the active roster—Boyle was on the practice squad.
• 2023: Goff and Bridgewater were on the active roster, Blough on the practice squad, Sudfeld was on injured reserve, and Hooker on the PUP list. Hooker would eventually be removed from the PUP and placed on the active roster late in the season.
• 2024: Goff and Hooker were on the active roster, with Fromm on the practice squad. Bridgewater would rejoin the active roster late in the season as the Lions’ “emergency third quarterback,” but assumed QB2 duties for the playoffs, with Hooker acting as the Lions’ EQB3.

The battleground

Entering 2025 training camp, Goff is once again the established starter, leaving only a couple of questions for this position group.

Can Hooker hold off Allen for the Lions QB2 job?

Hooker won the Lions’ QB2 job in 2024 and maintained the role throughout the regular season, but he was jumped on the game-day depth chart for the playoffs when the Lions opted to turn to Bridgewater for their backup role. While it’s easy to argue that the Lions lost faith in Hooker for the playoffs, I believe the...