Lions Senior Quarterback Hormann Takes a Shot at Joining NFL

While many of his teammates have hung up their pads, senior Craig Hormann is training to convince professional scouts that he has what it takes to make it in the National Football League.

Senior quarterback Craig Hormann won’t be waiting for an NFL draft call on April 27, but he might be waiting on one shortly after. The senior has been preparing for free agency since the Lions’ season ended.

The quarterback, who sat out last season’s spring game due to a knee injury, started to seriously consider the National Football League when scouts came in the fall to look at film of him and watch practice.

“I guess it was always something in the back of my mind,” Hormann said, “That if I had the opportunity I might as well take it.”

Hormann has worked this spring on drills as well as improving his footwork. He has also come in with the younger receivers to get in some practice.

“He’s got a pretty good arm, he’s not the most mobile quarterback around, but he knows his limitations and he’s trying to work on that,” Lions head coach Norries Wilson said. “He’s got to continue to work on making himself as mobile as possible. Show them he can make the hard throws and be accurate on the average throws.”

After being sidelined during last spring, Hormann started every game this season for the Lions. Although Columbia finished the season 1-9 and winless in the Ivy League, Hormann showed flashes of his potential, completing 30 of 51 passes for a team-high 415 yards against Penn. Recently, Hormann has said that his knee hasn’t bothered him.

“It’s pretty much like a new knee I feel like sometimes,” the quarterback said. “There’s been enough people that have come back from an injury like mine, where it’s not that big of a deal.”

While this season’s draft is certainly quarterback-heavy, with prospects such as Boston College’s Matt Ryan, Oregon’s Dennis Dixon, and Michigan’s Chad Henne, Hormann has made an impression on the scouts that have come through to look at film.

“A few teams that came through wanted to see him specifically,” Wilson said.

Those teams include the Houston Texans, Arizona Cardinals, Indianapolis Colts, and the Green Bay Packers.

“Everybody has film on him, and they know where he’s at. And they just have to see how they like him on their board,” Wilson added.

Wilson and the football office worked to get Hormann into a Pro Day at schools in the area because, as Wilson admitted, Columbia doesn’t “have the facilities currently that would facilitate a bunch of people coming to see him work out.”

Hormann attended two Pro Days before spring break at Hofstra and Wagner and participated in the combine drills as well as the quarterback drills. While he won’t attend any more Pro Days, Hormann does have some private workouts in the next couple of weeks.

In an e-mail to sports information director Todd Kennedy, Hormann wrote, “The scouts present—the Colts, Eagles, and Giants—were impressed with how I threw and thought I did well overall during the workout.”

Hormann, who grew up in the Indianapolis area, mentioned that he would like the opportunity to go home and play for the Colts, with whom he interned during their summer training camp before sophomore year. Right now, however, he is trying to just get his name out there.

“My focus right now, it’s more or less just kind of getting on the radar of more teams, and hopefully they’ll have some interest in me as a free agent,” Hormann said.

“I think it would be a great opportunity for him,” Wilson said. “You just have to go and take your best shot, you don’t know how many chances you’re going to get.”

After graduating in May, Hormann has a job lined up with a real estate firm in the city, which he said has taken the pressure off this process for him. He hasn’t considered leagues outside of the NFL, but will decide based on the outcome of free agency.

“If I didn’t try to pursue this now, it would be something I would regret probably, in 20 or 30 years,” Hormann said.