5 quarterbacks the Detroit Lions could sign to bolster their depth chart
With Nate Sudfeld looking awful (#asexpected) in the preseason opener against the New York Giants, and Hendon Hooker suffering a concussion in the game, the Detroit Lions quite simply may need another quarterback to navigate the rest of the preseason.
On Sunday, head coach Dan Campbell acknowledged the seeming inevitability of adding a quarterback with Hooker out of practice most of the week.
"Brad (Holmes) and I talked about that this morning, that could come down the wire, you know, today or tomorrow." Campbell said. "There is a chance, you know, I think we'll, we'll have a pretty good idea this afternoon as to do we need to go ahead and do that, just to make sure we've got a guy other than Nate, you know, for the game."
There's a conversation, independent of Hooker's health, about Sudfeld even being deserving of a spot on the Lions' roster at this point. Hooker will also miss valuable reps this week, impacting his readiness to be the No. 2 quarterback behind Jared Goff. So what was a vague, potential problem for the Lions a couple weeks ago is now very much a concern. If something happened to Goff, ignoring having a more proven/more capable backup would take a season with Super Bowl aspirations down to.
There's definitely a scale of likelihood to consider with all of these guys, but here are five quarterbacks the Lions could sign (not trade for) to bolster their quarterback depth chart.
5 quarterbacks Detroit Lions could sign
5. Nathan Rourke
Rourke was a dual threat force in college at Ohio University. Playing for the BC Lions in the CFL, he was named Most Outstanding Canadian in 2022 as he set the single season league record for completion percentage (78.7 percent).
Rourke has made some rounds on a few NFL rosters over the last year or so, most recently released by the Atlanta Falcons after Week 1 of the preseason.
It's unclear how serious the Lions will be about adding another quarterback, from a proverbial "camp body" to someone who could actually be the No. 2 quarterback going into the season. Rourke has landed right in their laps toward the camp body end of that scale. They can offer him the chance to play in a couple preseason games, and from a fan perspective he'd be far more fun to watch than Sudfeld.