Pressers and scrums: There's no such thing as too many reps for Hendon Hooker

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East Rutherford, N.J. — Joint practices should be beneficial to every player on the roster, but it’s within reason to suggest they mean a little more to Hendon Hooker.

The second-year quarterback was sidelined for training camp his rookie season while rehabbing his way back from the torn ACL that ended his college career. Currently locked in a battle for Detroit’s backup job behind starter Jared Goff, and struggling to keep pace with nine-year veteran Nate Sudfeld, Hooker needs every rep he can get to sharpen his ability to process faster and live up to the potential he was showing during a Heisman-caliber final season at Tennessee.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s us or it’s them or it’s a game, he just needs reps and reps and reps” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “He goes to bed and he needs reps and he wakes up and he needs reps. So this is — any time he can be out there and run the offense and function it’s going to be good for him.”

Hooker got the fewest reps of Detroit’s quarterbacks on Monday while leading the third-team offense, but even when he wasn’t operating in a full-team setting, he was off to the side, quietly working through this offseason’s adjustment to his mechanics.

“Every situation is pretty much a new experience for me,” Hooker said after the day’s practice. “(I’m) taking the good and the bad away from any play that I have, just continue to learn and get better every day. Don’t make the same mistakes twice.”

While trying to fend off the challenge of Hooker, Sudfeld has simultaneously embraced serving as a mentor to his young teammate. When you’ve been around the league for a while, it gets easier to separate the competition from the personal relationships you forge with teammates.

“I don't think (the competition) gets between our personal relationship at all,” Sudfeld said. “I really want to see him be great. I think Hendon has a ton of talent. He's a great kid, smart, has all the things that you want, all the foundational things that you want to be a great player. It's definitely hard. It takes a little bit, especially coming off an injury. I understand, it just takes a little bit to kind of put it all together. But he's done some really, really great things, and I think he's going to be a great player in this league.”

● Sam LaPorta suffered an injury in practice last week and was a non-participant on Monday. He still made the trip to New York, as did defensive tackle DJ Reader. Both worked with a trainer on the indoor field during the early part of the morning’s session.

The way Campbell talked about LaPorta’s injury, it sounds like the second-year tight end will miss days, not weeks.

● Detroit’s defensive line wasn’t as good Monday as it has been the first couple weeks of camp, but those improvements have been generating some buzz. Obviously, there are some new additions, including edge rusher Marcus Davenport, but the biggest upgrade might be veteran position coach Terrell Williams.

I asked Campbell what kind of impact Williams was having on the group.

“Well, it’s back to the fundamentals, and I think sometimes, if you’re not careful, you throw so much at players that they’re trying to think of everything you just threw at them instead of working it one at a time,” Campbell said. “You can only work one thing at a time. You try to do two, you’ll never — you just can’t. The brain doesn’t work that way. So I feel like he’s really just broken it down into pieces and he’s got these guys playing fast, fundamental, sound football. He's knowledgeable and he understands how to get his point across.”

Those comments echo what Aidan Hutchinson said about Williams last week. Detroit’s star pass rusher praised his new coach for simplifying the plan when getting after the quarterback.

“All we're really focused on is getting off the ball, striking blocks and the rest of it will take care of itself,” Hutchinson said. “I feel like that mindset is very liberating for a lot of D-lineman.”