How Booker beat the odds and earned a spot on Eagles’ roster originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
When you’re on the bubble, wondering if you survived final cuts, wondering if you have a future in the NFL, nobody calls to say you made the team. They only call if it’s bad news.
So you find out you’re an NFL player by not getting a phone call.
For Thomas Booker the best news possible on Tuesday was silence.
“The way it happened is I didn’t get a call,” he said. “So it’s one of those things where you kind of wait for that 4 p.m. deadline. Hope that your phone does not ring with a Philadelphia area code number that you might not have seen before.”
Booker, a 24-year-old defensive tackle that the Eagles signed as a long-shot futures player in January, made the team after an impressive training camp and preseason performance. He just kept making plays and made it impossible for Howie Roseman to release him.
Booker is one of six interior linemen on the 53-man roster, along with Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Milton Williams, Morro Ojomo and Marlon Tuipuloto.
“It was definitely a happy feeling,” he said. “I put in a lot of work. I had gotten a lot of help from guys around me in my defensive line room. … It was definitely a great feeling to be able to put the work in and have it be recognized by the staff, the organization in general, but it’s one of these things where, football, nothing’s ever final, so you’re always earning your spot on the 53 every single day.”
Booker, 24, was originally a 5th-round pick of the Texans out of Stanford in 2022 and played in 10 games with 206 defensive snaps as a rookie. The Texans released him after the season, and he spent the season on the Eagles’ practice squad. He never got a game-day call-up, never got on the field, not even for one snap.
It was a learning year for Booker but he hated not playing.
“Man, it gives you a lot of perspective,” he said. “Not being able to kinda strap it up and play was…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/booker-beat-odds-earned-spot-141130541.html
Author : NBC Sports Philadelphia
Publish date : 2024-08-29 14:11:30
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
