The long road back to being on the football field has finally arrived at the desired endpoint for Lions quarterback Hendon Hooker. Detroit activated the rookie from the non-football injury (NFI) list on Tuesday.
Hooker had been designated to return nearly three weeks ago, and that activation came with one day left on the 21-day clock. Hooker has been recovering from a torn ACL suffered over a year ago while he was playing collegiately at Tennessee. He will be Detroit’s No. 3 quarterback behind Jared Goff and Teddy Bridgewater.
Activating Hooker allows him to be a full participant in practices and to be actively coached, neither of which were permitted while he was on the reserve list.
To make room on the roster, the Lions waived kicker Riley Patterson. He had lost the kicking gig to Michael Badgley.