Should the New York Giants Trade for QB Hendon Hooker?

After Jared Goff's contract extension with the Detroit Lions, should the New York Giants inquire about acquiring Lions backup Hendon Hooker if he’s available?

Detroit Lions quarterback Hendon Hooker warms up before the Dallas Cowboys game at AT&T Stadium / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

The New York Giants might not want to admit it, but their quarterback situation is at a crossroads right now. 

Daniel Jones has missed significant time in two of the last three seasons and has only had one good season, arguably in his entire career to this point.  in the NFL right now, although that contract isn’t as bad as some might believe.

Meanwhile, Detroit Lions quarterback  in the NFL after signing a contract extension last week. With Goff under contract for the foreseeable future, there has been increased speculation as to whether the Lions might be open to trading quarterback Hendon Hooker, a 2023 third-round pick, since he realistically has no path to playing time in Detroit, barring injury.

Leading up to the 2023 draft, the Giants met with Hooker multiple times and brought him in for a 30-visit. 

The 30-visit between Hooker and the Giants has significance because it meant the Giants likely wanted another look at his knee while recovering from his torn ACL. 

There was also genuine interest, given that general manager Joe Schoen tends to use those visits to target players the team is actually interested in.

The most difficult part about projecting a trade involving Hooker is trying to determine his actual trade value. Hooker is in the second year of his four-year rookie contract, so as far as that point is concerned, he’s got tremendous value there. 

If a team trades for Hooker and intends to play him right away, they would have their potential long-term starter for a bargain for the next few years.

The downside of trading for Hooker is that he’s already 26 years old and hasn’t touched an NFL field yet after tearing his ACL late during the 2022 season for the Tennessee Volunteers. 

Of course, even if Hooker never touches the field for the Giants either, realistically, there shouldn’t be much draft capital traded for him, so the net loss of the trade wouldn’t be too impactful.

The most similar recent trade would be the  to the Miami Dolphins after his rookie season after they drafted Kyler Murray. The Dolphins gave up a second-round pick and a future fifth-round pick to acquire Rosen from the Cardinals.

For additional context, the Cardinals ate a larger cap hit due to Rosen’s rookie contract as the tenth overall pick in the draft. The cap hit alone on Rosen’s contract was over $8M, while . 

The Cardinals needed to receive at least decent draft compensation because of the cap hit they took and because of Rosen's potential to go to the Dolphins. 

It’s been very rare that a player doesn’t play a down in the NFL and is then traded, but Hooker’s case is a rare one considering he was injured during his rookie season. The reasonable compensation for Hooker, in my opinion, would be a mid-Day 3 pick. 

Given the ceiling that Hooker has, it’s worth trading that sort of compensation in exchange for someone that might be able to compete for a spot long-term. 

It’s also important to note that even if the Giants did trade for him, he would always be a project coming out of that Tennessee offense. 

If Hooker didn’t develop at the rate that the Giants want or expect, it would be easy to cut ties with him at any point.

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