School: Virginia Tech (2019-2020), Tennessee (2021-2022)

Position: QB

Year: Redshirt Senior

The Good: In some years’ QB classes – including last year – Hooker would be the best pure thrower in the group. He’s very accurate with superb ball placement, and he throws to the intermediate areas of the field on a pretty line and the deep areas with proper loft. He might be the best deep passer in this Draft, and whoever drafts him will likely aim to take advantage of that skill right away. Hooker is just generally smooth and operates extremely quickly. He stands tall in the pocket, has a beautiful release, and by all accounts crushed his interviews at the Senior Bowl. He certainly has the look of a franchise quarterback.

The Bad: Part of Hooker’s look is that of a total statue in the pocket. There isn’t much pre-snap operation in his game right now and he can tend to lock onto his first read, so when defenses mess with that then Hooker has a tendency to freeze up. He’s mechanically dependent, which isn’t much of an issue when he has blocking in front of him and receivers getting open. It’s just one facet of many where Hooker lacks creativity though. Hooker needs his whole body to work in line to get enough juice on the ball, and he rarely completes passes whenever he breaks the pocket. Hooker ran with the ball a good amount in college but I don’t see that as much a part of his game in the NFL, especially after tearing his ACL. He obviously had a stellar final season at Tennessee, but his showdown against Georgia left a lot to be desired.

The Bottom Line: Josh Heupel has built an offensive juggernaut at Tennessee, which unfortunately does make it a bit harder to evaluate his players independent of the ideal surroundings. There are constantly guys wide open all over the field, and there are a good amount of snap throws built into the scheme that inflate stats as well. Still, I have some confidence that Hooker is independently a solid quarterback almost purely on the basis of his right arm. He wasn’t exactly a world beater at Tennessee like his numbers and record would indicate, and I don’t expect him to be one in the NFL either. But if a team is looking for a game-ready passer for its system – assuming Hooker is healthy by the start of the season – then he could be that guy. It could easily be construed as a negative that Hooker has already turned 25, but it feels like a case is emerging that seasoned QB prospects are better suited for rookie contracts than their younger counterparts. Hooker could make for an intriguing alternative to, say, signing Jimmy Garoppolo for any team picking near the bottom of Round 1 or top half of Round 2.

Grade: Second Round

Pro Comp: Derek Carr

Games Watched:

• South Carolina 2021
• Alabama 2021
• Florida 2022
• LSU 2022
• Alabama 2022
• Georgia 2022

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