How the young Eagle went from a sideline to a spot in the squad in an off-season

How the young Eagle went from afterthought to roster spot in 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 got promoted and never even got a proper dressing room.

But he kept working.

And on Tuesday, when the Eagles cut their roster from 91 players to 53, Booker remained. He made the Eagles’ first 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. “Great work ethic. He’s 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’s worked.

“When you see his tape and his get-off and his ability to play leverage, to play power, to affect the quarterback, to disrupt the quarterback in the backfield, it was clear to us that this guy deserved to be on the team. I probably should have told him that before I told you guys.”

Roseman and head coach Nick Sirianni spoke to reporters around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, not long after the 4 p.m. deadline. While they have obviously reached out to all of the players they have released or have let go, they have not been able to give the good news to every player who was on the roster. That is often the case.

For Booker, no news was good news.

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

But after his second training camp, the Texans cut him and brought him in. A year later, he’s back 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, making the Eagles’ offensive line look good, which helped both sides.

“It’s just a really good example of the work he did last year when he was here against a good offensive line,” Sirianni said. “The improvement that Thomas had on our practice squad last year has really been enhanced because of the quality of player that he played against all year.

“He’s definitely developed into a really good player to the point where he’s on this roster, but him being that iron that sharpens iron, that’s really special. To see him grow because he’s going up against Landon (Dickerson), he’s going up against Cam (Jurgens) and Jason Kelce. It’s a compliment to our roster as a whole.”

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

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

Roseman said the Eagles took a different approach to the futures market this year because of the relative weakness of the undrafted class. That turned out to be a good bet.

And Booker made the most of his opportunity.

“I’m just really proud of him,” Roseman said. “It’s a great testament to our development program. Those guys, the program that we have, led by Connor (Barwin), does a great 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’ve done a great job of getting them into position.

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

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