It’s starting out as a legit competition for who will be Jared Goff’s backup, but the Lions may already have a problem there.

At the outset of the 2023 offseason, Lions general manager Brad Holmes professed how a level of emphasis would be placed on the No. 2 quarterback spot behind Jared Goff.

“Going into this past year, yeah, we went down to the umpteenth hour trying to figure out what we were gonna do at number two. “I’ve let it be known internally that we’re not gonna be in that position again heading into this year, so we have to get that settled. I thought Nate Sudfeld did a nice job with us, so we’ll figure that out. But, I am gonna make it a point of emphasis and make sure that, being that we’re finally in a position to address that quarterback room behind Jared, we have been in that position in the past. But, we’re gonna make that a point of emphasis this year.””

That “emphasis” yielded re-signing Nate Sudfeld, and eventually talking Teddy Bridgewater out of retirement to come in and be Goff’s backup last season.

This offseason, second-year man Hendon Hooker has been expected to be the Lions’ No. 2 quarterback. Sudfeld is still around, and early in camp head coach Dan Campbell has already professed a genuine competition for the No. 2 spot on the depth chart as Hooker and Sudfeld have rotated taking snaps with the second-team offense.

Lions may already have a quarterback problem

Saturday was the Lions’ last practice before Monday, when they’ll out pads on. In terms of how Hooker and Sudfeld did, let’s let the recap of the day from Mike Payton of AtoZ Sports stand as the gospel.

“Hooker might be in some trouble when it comes to that QB2 spot. Saturday was a very rough day for him. He held onto the ball for way too long on multiple snaps and it cost him every time.
Hooker had multiple balls hit the dirt during the day and nearly all the other balls were short or overthrown. He had multiple passes broken up by DB’s.”

Payton did note a nice throw he saw from Hooker, then he went on to highlight Sudfeld’s performance on Saturday.

“Last year Nate Sudfeld had a rough camp and preseason. He was anything but sharp. On Saturday he looked like a guy that could command an offense during the regular season if he had to. He was very sharp and hit on nearly all of his passes. We’ll have to see what he looks like in the preseason still, but Saturday we saw a guy that looked like he handled pressure a lot better and was zooming throws in there.”

Sudfeld came into the NFL in 2016, as a sixth-round pick of Washington. He has 37 career regular season pass attempts, with zero since 2020 and 14 since 2017. Even with the caveat of his torn ACL late last preseason, that’s not much of a sample of work. Intangible value, as a quarterback with experience in multiple offensive systems, is his No. 1 calling card. If he ever has to play notable snaps, the Lions are in deep trouble.

Hooker will be given some leeway to learn and have ups and downs during camp and preseason games. But if he can’t (or doesn’t) beat out Sudfeld, that’s a whole different thing.

It’s early still, and it’s not a big surprise that Hooker and Sudfeld appear to be on equal footing in the competition to be Goff’s primary backup. But the Lions will have a problem if Hooker can’t begin to separate himself, and it’s safe to say things aren’t off to a great start.