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.
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“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.”
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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 definitely one of those things where it makes you sit there and be like, ‘Wow, like, I need to be out there.’
“I feel like after going through that last year, I think just the appreciation for the opportunity that you have becomes even greater. That was definitely something for me. And when it came into this training camp, you know, Year 3 for me … the spectacle was gone a little bit. You stopped getting as nervous and seeing all the bright lights and you just ended up playing football like you had been for the rest of your life. … Being in my my third year gave me the comfortability and the confidence that I've needed to perform.”
Booker quietly put in a tremendous amount of work last year. After practice, Connor Barwin and Matt Leo lead all the practice squad guys in extra work, Nick Sirianni’s so-called developmental period.
It really paid off.
“(They) do a great job of developing the practice squad guys in terms of actually giving them pointers about, ‘All right, we've looked through all your your film this week against the 1’s, what can you do better?'" Booker said. '"You know, your body leverage a little bit high here, that's why your power rush isn't working as well, hand use isn't there, maybe your recognition of the set isn't as quick as it should be.’
“All of that stuff is drilled in … which I thought kind of gave me an idea of where I was as a player and where I could improve.”
What’s next for Booker?
He probably won’t initially have a role in Vic Fangio’s defensive line rotation, but based on what we saw this summer, he can play.
“This guy, if you were here in the offseason, he lived in the facility,” Roseman said, “Tremendous work ethic. Obviously, an incredibly smart guy, a Stanford guy. He's got all the tools in his body. Just an incredible tribute to him and how hard he worked.
“When you see his tape and his get-off and his ability to play with leverage, to play with power, to affect the quarterback, to be disruptive around the quarterback in the backfield, to us, it was clear the guy deserved to be on the team.”
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