The Minnesota Vikings announce the team has traded a second-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft and a third-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft to the Detroit Lions in exchange for TE T.J. Hockenson, a fourth-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft and a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. The completion of this trade is pending Hockenson passing a physical.
Hockenson, who is in his fourth season, joins the Vikings via trade from the Detroit Lions, where he had spent his entire career. The eighth overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, Hockenson has appeared in 47 career games with 42 starts, collecting 2,068 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns on 186 receptions in his career. After a career-high 67 catches for 723 yards and six touchdowns in 2020, Hockenson earned Pro Bowl honors.
In 2022, Hockenson has started all seven games for the Lions, totaling 26 receptions for 395 yards, the most receiving yards in his career through the first seven games of a season, and three touchdowns. Hockenson’s 15.2 yards per catch is the most in the NFL among all qualifying tight ends in 2022. In Week 4 vs. Seattle, Hockenson set a career-high with 179 receiving yards (the most by a tight end this season and the most ever by a Lions tight end), including a career-long 81-yard reception, the second-longest play from scrimmage in the NFL this season. In the contest vs. Seattle, Hockenson totaled 109 yards after the catch, the most in a single game in the NFL in 2022 and the most for a tight end since 49ers TE George Kittle had 136 vs. Denver on Dec. 9, 2018.
A native of Chariton, Iowa, Hockenson attended the University of Iowa where he won the John Mackey Award in 2018, an award given annually to the nation’s best tight end. Hockenson was teammates with Vikings QB David Blough while in Detroit.
(info courtesy of Vikings)