According to Adam Schefter, the Lions are trading TE T.J. Hockenson to the Vikings.
Tom Pelissero has the trade compensation. The Vikings will give up a 2023 second and 2024 third-round pick for Hockenson, with the Lions also sending back a 2023 fourth-round pick and conditional 2024 fourth-round pick.
Teams very rarely trade inside their division, especially with players of this caliber. But the Lions and Vikings already made a deal during the draft, so both GMs Brad Holmes and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah are clearly less concerned about that.
Minnesota had a need at tight end after losing Irv Smith Jr. to a high ankle sprain. Meanwhile, Hockenson was nearing a contract year and evidently wasn’t a big piece of Detroit’s future plans, even though they picked up his fifth-year option this offseason.
Hockenson had this to say late last week about a potential trade.
“Listen, I’m not stupid, I know what I can bring to another team and I know here that they could, if they want something, if they want to do things for the future then I’m not stupid in that sense,” Hockenson told Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “It is a business and whatever they have to do upstairs they’re going to do. And that doesn’t — there are no hard feelings about it. There’s no, ‘Hey, I don’t like him personally or anything about that. That’s just how it is. So I’m not dumb or naive in that fact.”
Hockenson, 25, is a former first-round pick of the Lions back in 2019. He’s currently in the fourth year of his four-year rookie deal worth $19,821,230.
The Lions exercised Hockenson’s fifth-year option which is slated to costs $9.4 million guaranteed for the 2023 season.
In 2022, Hockenson has appeared in seven games for the Lions and caught 26 of 43 targets for 395 yards and three touchdowns.
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