For all intents and purposes, the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions are playoff teams in the NFC. While Detroit for sure is, what happens if anything bad were to happen to starting quarterback Jared Goff? Although he has had a clean bill of health, if he goes down, my pick to win Super Bowl 59 could be screwed. These concerns were thoroughly expressed by Brad Berreman over on SideLion Report.
Berreman wrote that the backup quarterback battle brewing in Detroit between second-year pro Hendon Hooker and veteran journeyman Nate Sudfeld may be problematic. Like, if Hooker cannot definitively beat out Sudfeld for the No. 2 job, was he merely only a great college football player? I have said for years that Josh Heupel’s offense at Tennessee does not translate to the NFL at all.
Thus, I took one of the players Berreman liked for the Lions to acquire and made a trade proposal.
Admittedly, I may have viewed this a bit differently than Berreman. I wrote about this last week regarding Hooker being expendable, mostly because I thought Sudfeld playing well in the early part of training camp could give the Lions a movable asset that a team desperate for a quarterback could use. Maybe I still view Hooker in the same vein as what he did at Tennessee two and three seasons ago?
And I think that is where we arrive at an interesting crossroads. Those in the know about the Lions are skeptical about Hooker being a guy, whereas those outside of the Lions’ sphere may still view Hooker as positively as he was seen coming out of Tennessee two years ago. Yes, he had that brutal knee injury that ended his college career, but I can understand the pessimism. This is why I am trading him.
I think for Cooper Rush and a glorified pick swap, we might be able to make the dollars make sense.
How Detroit Lions can trade for Dallas Cowboys QB Cooper Rush
Because Rush is slated to make $1 million more this year than Hooker, we need to do our best to try and make up the difference. Throwing in a 2026 seventh-round pick with Rush in exchange for Hooker and a 2025 fifth-round pick gets us to within $70,000 of being totally even when it comes to AAV. Dallas gets something more immediate in a draft pick if Hooker fails, while Detroit gets … something.
I think the biggest thing with Detroit is you cannot make any missteps when it comes to roster construction. Brad Holmes has proven to be a tremendous front-office executive since coming over from the Los Angeles Rams. He is not afraid to trade in-conference. Although the Cowboys might be a reluctant partner in this sort of hypothetical deal, Hooker does kind of feel like a Dallas star to me.
Hooker could benefit in going to a place where he has a better chance of starting in the immediate future. Don’t be crazy. Dallas should absolutely extend Dak Prescott. They would be beyond stupid not to. Then again, Dallas may be going through major wholesale changes after next season. If they let Prescott, then maybe they are willing to give Hooker a chance? They did that with Prescott before.
I don’t know if trading for Rush solves all of the Lions’ problems, but he can win them a game or two.