Dan Campbell says Kyle Allen has earned the trust for the Lions' QB2 job, but does he count Hendon Hooker out?

At this point, it's probably more than fair to go ahead and say that Kyle Allen has earned the Detroit Lions backup quarterback job over Hendon Hooker. Allen has been steadily solid all summer long and despite the two interceptions in the Hall of Fame game, he has made little ot no mistakes.

On Saturday, that continued with a 14-17 for 124 yards and two touchdown performance. For the third straight week, Hooker struggled to get anything going. He ended the game with an interception after what seemed like a decent two-minute drill. He's amassed just 117 passing yards in all three games combined. It's not going well at all.

Ahead of Saturday, all anyone has been waiting for is for Lions head coach Dan Campbell to just say Kyle Allen has the job. After being asked in multiple different ways, he seemed to have finally done that after the loss to the Dolphins.

"He's playing better. So I would say that right now, if you're saying, if you had to go in with a two right now, who would you trust more? Yeah, I would trust Kyle more because he's proven more after these two games. But we're still going to coach Hooker up. We're still going to see what's there and see if we can get him better. I mean, we still got a little bit here."

So maybe not an outright proclamation, but I don't think we'll ever really get that. Don't expect a town crier to come out and announce it for the Lions. It wasn't really announced last year either. But there's one week of camp left and one preseason game left. This is as close as you might get. That and the other things Campbell said about Allen Saturday.

"Pretty confident. I mean, Here we go. This is the second week in a row in a competitive setting that he's moved the football for us and made critical throws at critical times." Campbell said. "I thought the two-minute drill at the end was, was awesome, right before half. I mean, he's got really good command of the offense. He communicates very clearly. He doesn't get frazzled. He doesn't worry about anything. You know, if he does something that didn't quite go right or he makes a mistake, like he doesn't get frazzled. He's on to the next play, which all of us appreciate that. He's done a good job. I do have faith in him."

As for Hooker, the question now is, will he be on this team in 2025? That remains to be seen. As shown earlier, Campbell says he still wants to coach him up and that he plans to get him some reps against the Texans next week. He even said he might start. At this point, it seems really up in the air because Hooker will be 28 this year, and you wonder if it's worth continuing for a third season and having him hold up a roster spot if you don't see a real future with him. We'll see what happens very soon. The Lions' final cutdown day is on August 27.