How young Eagle went from afterthought to roster spot in an offseason

How young Eagle went from afterthought to roster spot in an offseason originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Defensive tackle Thomas Booker IV spent all of last year on the Eagles’ practice squad.

He was never promoted, never elevated, never even got a real locker.

But he kept working.

And on Tuesday, as the Eagles’ trimmed their roster from 91 players to 53, Booker was left standing. He made the Eagles’ initial 53-man roster as their sixth defensive tackle.

“This guy, if you were here in the offseason, he lived in the facility,” Eagles general manager Howie 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. I probably should have said this to him before I said it to you guys.”

Roseman and head coach Nick Sirianni spoke to reporters around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, not long after the 4 p.m. cut deadline. While they obviously got in touch with all the players they waived or released, they didn’t get to deliver the good news to every player who made the roster. Often, that’s the case.

So for Booker, no news was good news.

The Eagles signed Booker to their practice squad on Aug. 31 last year after he was waived by the Houston Texans. They drafted him in the fifth-round out of Stanford back in 2022. As a rookie, Booker played in 10 games and started one for the Texans — he finished the year with 15 tackles, 5 pressures, 1 TFL, 1 QB hit and half a sack in 206 defensive snaps.

But he was waived by the Texans after his second training camp and the Eagles brought him in. A year later, he’s on the roster.

Seven different defensive tackles played snaps for the Eagles in 2023 and Booker wasn’t one of them. Instead, he was a mainstay on the scout team, giving the Eagles’ offensive line good looks, which helped both sides.

“It’s just a real good example too of the work that he got against a good offensive line last year while he was here,” Sirianni said. “The improving Thomas on our practice squad last year really improved because of the quality of player he was going against the entire year.

“No doubt has he made himself a really good player to a point where he’s on this roster, but he’s that iron sharpening iron is really special. To see him grow because he’s going against Landon (Dickerson), he’s going against Cam (Jurgens) and Jason Kelce. A credit to our roster as a whole.”

And after his year on the practice squad was up, Booker signed a futures deal in January (along with over 20 others) to stick around some more. Booker (6-3, 301) made the most of his opportunity this summer, flashing in practices and in the preseason. He earned his spot.

The Eagles didn’t have a single undrafted rookie make the team but a few guys on futures deals — Booker, Tristin McCollum and Darian Kinnard — did make the roster.

Roseman said the Eagles had a different approach in the futures market this year because of the relative weakness of the undrafted class. That proved to be a good gamble.

And Booker made the most of his chance.

“Just really proud of him,” Roseman said. “It’s a great tribute to our development program. Those guys, the program that we have, led by Connor (Barwin), does a tremendous job of developing guys and trying to work on their weaknesses while they’re on the practice squad in the spring and in the summer and then obviously with our coaches, they did a tremendous job of putting in position.

“You see a guy with talent, with intangibles, with work ethic who looked really good. Excited to see what he can do during the regular season.”

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