T.J. Hockenson has described life away from football as a “dark place,” somewhere he’d like to escape. However, he doesn’t know when he’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel.
He believes it may be sometime soon. Hockenson stayed late after practice to build chemistry with Sam Darnold. He’s been running routes on air for the past five months. However, the Minnesota Vikings opened his 21-day practice window before they practiced in London last week. Slowly but surely, Hockenson is integrating himself back into the team.
“It felt great. I’ve loved every second of it,” Hockenson said. “Just to be around the guys again and feel football.”
The Vikings listed Hockenson as limited in practice, and he’s uncertain whether he’ll be able to play against the Detroit Lions on Sunday. If he’s fully healthy, Minnesota would love to have him in a game that may determine who takes control of the NFC.
It would also be an opportunity for Hockenson to beat his old team. Minnesota traded for Hockenson on November 1, 2022, and hasn’t beaten Detroit since. A month after the Vikings traded for Hockenson, the Lions beat them 34-23. Last year, Detroit beat them in both Weeks 16 and 18 after Zac Taylor and the Cincinnati Bengals created a blueprint to stymie Brian Flores’ defense in Week 15.
Hockenson tore his ACL when Kerby Joseph hit him low in Week 16*. Hockenson has maintained that he has no ill will toward his former teammate. Instead, he believes the league should change the rules to encourage hits higher on the body and not allow players to lead with the crown of their helmets.
Hockenson has been by Minnesota’s 5-0 start. Still, it’s hard for him to watch from the sidelines. That will be especially true if the Vikings rule him out for the Lions game, given it’s an important game against his former team. Hockenson has physically felt fine for months and has no reservations about playing on the knee. He knows it’s fully healed and is ready to step on the gridiron again.
I’ve felt good for months now, but….there’s data that says nine months is the key. So just having to wait until then has been something that’s been hard for me. I think at seven [months], I was ready to go out there and start practicing.
But that’s another thing that the PTs (physical therapists) here have done an incredible job, just being like, ‘Hey, you can’t go, you can’t go.’ It’s not smart. They do everything in the best interest of you as a person, and not necessarily what you want to do or what you’re asking to do. They do what’s best for you from science, from a standpoint of being better in years to come.
Hockenson said Vikings ownership, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, and Kevin O’Connell called and visited him multiple times throughout the process. “When you’re going through an injury like that, you really find out who’s on your side,” he said, while also crediting his wife for supporting him. “The Vikings were there every single step of the way.”
Tyler Williams and Minnesota’s medical staff also accommodated him through the nine months of rehab. They sent him to Southern California to work with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who O’Connell knew from his time coaching the Los Angeles Rams, for the surgery.
The Vikings then worked with Hockenson’s trainers in Nashville to allow him to rehab from his adopted hometown. He also hosts Tight End U in Nashville, an offseason training program with Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and Greg Olsen. By working with PTs at home, he could have a relatively normal off-season.
Hockenson said the focus of the second half of his rehab was getting up to game speed.
They put trackers on me every single step of the way. They’ve had speeds from when I played last year when I was healthy. Being able to come out here and run straight lines on my routes, track that data in our stuff, and being able to see how many yards you’re getting, see how many explosive yards you’re getting, how many decels (decelerations) you’re getting, all that kind of stuff.
It’s been incredible to see, and it really keeps you on track. It pushes you every single day because you’re looking at the iPad, and it tells you halfway through the workout, “Hey, you’re at 1,500 yards. We need to get another 2,000.”
Most players run 3,500 to 4,000 yards at practice, and the Vikings track them throughout the season. With healthy players, it allows them to see how much they are exerting themselves. They can see whether they need rest to avoid injury and be at peak performance on game day. For rehabbing players like Hockenson, it allows him to simulate practice and work up to game speed without risking injury.
That’s something that has been incredible with these guys. They’ve had a plan for me, and then once we’re done with that and I still have some yards I need to hit, they’re like, “Hey, what do you want to do? What do you need to work on? What do you need to do for your confidence?”
I was trying to keep up with them as much as I could. So if they were at 3,500 yards, I’d be trying to hit 3,500 yards. If they were at 4,000 yards, I’d be trying to hit 4,000 yards. Obviously, some of that’s jogging and stuff, but the majority of it’s routes and speed lines. If they’re at 15 acels and 15 decels, then that’s what I need to get to. So that kind of stuff, it is incredible how far the technologies come and how well the Vikings use that.
Each step paved a pathway for him to return. It’s been a long, dark road for Hockenson. He’s starting to see the light but is unsure when the path will end. There would be something poetic about his rehab process ending with him walking out of the tunnel into U.S. Bank Stadium for a crucial game against his old team. But things don’t always work out the way they should. Otherwise, Hockenson wouldn’t have been on that path in the first place.
*An earlier version of this post misidentified which Lions game Hockenson got injured in. We regret the error.
