Bear Digest

Molding Austin Booker Might Be a Luxury Bears Can't Afford

Analysis: The rookie fifth-round edge rusher shows skills and natural ability many defensive ends lack but it still requires precious time to be developed.

Gene Chamberlain

Austin Booker flashes big play ability but the Bears need someone to do this immediately on the line as projects take time.
Austin Booker flashes big play ability but the Bears need someone to do this immediately on the line as projects take time. / Kevin Whitlock / Massillon Independent / USA TODAY NETWORK
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The emphasis on the need for Caleb Williams to develop quickly never became more apparent than in the conversation between Nick Saban and Matt Eberflus on HBO's Hard Knocks.

The Bears' rapid developmental needs go well beyond Williams, however.

At least in Williams, they have the first pick of the draft and a player generally recognized as college football's best passer over the last two years.

On the other side of the football, the pressure to develop quickly is huge for the Bears defensive line and particularly rookie edge Austin Booker.

This is also a major reason to suspect the Bears still will look at the defensive line free agent list in the next week or so, or might wait and do it following final roster cutdowns in hopes a veteran with skill might be available who could provide something more than someone like Yannick Ngakoue might.

Not only do the Bears have a rookie fifth-round pick counted on as a third or fourth edge in their rotation, but it's a rookie who didn't even have much college experience.

"Yeah, he's a one-year guy as opposed to a two, three, four-year guy," Bears defensive line coach Travis Smith said. "I think there is probably some truth to that. He was at Minnesota then Kansas, but I think that there's a little bit of truth to that."

Booker didn't really even play much football until his last year at Kansas, when he had eight sacks.

"He's like a ball of clay that you want to mold and that's really every rookie," Smith said.

Do the Bears have time for Playdough on the edge? Doubtful.

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"But yet from a front perspective if it's a rush, they are really very a blank canvas, which makes it fun, I think, too," Smith said. "Coaching a rookie as opposed to a 10-year vet is a different thing.

"You get the 10-year vet, they come in, 'Well, this is what has always worked for me.' You want to use what they have had success with, but you also want them to buy into how we do things. For a rookie, it's only a canvas that we want to create."

In a way, they're in the same situation they were with Dominique Robinson in 2022. He came in a fifth-round pick who converted in college from quarterback to wide receiver to edge rusher, and hadn't even done much of it. The result has been Robinson making only two sacks in two years.

However, Booker has shown some traits they like to make it seem he might learn to contribute faster.

"I think we've had conversations where our evaluation between the personnel staff and us coaches of his college tape, is the unorthodox is what we are seeing," Smith said. "I think coach Flus said it too where we have had conversations how he doesn't predetermine his move. Some guys get up there and they line up as an end or a tackle and I'm going to cross-chop you or I'm going to power-rush you.

"He gets off and whatever you give him, he takes, which is very, for him it's natural. For a lot of rushers it's not. They want to try to predetermine so they can set up their move."

It still takes time to develop the talent, whether it's unorthodox or orthodox. All of the physical qualities seem to be there.

"He is athletic and can kind of bend and he's long-limbed, or whatever you give him he's gonna take," Smith said. "The good thing he does is he has length and he can rush with power even though he is a lean body, and we need to develop that. He's got long leverage, so if he is playing with good pad level, you see him create momentum and movement with his length.

"Now we just got to refine that movement, so that's his signature, what is your counter off of that? All of a sudden if (a blocker is) setting you aggressively, oh, what are you going to do? You got to be able to hands, hips, work edges, but that is part of his growth."

The problem is growth rarely comes at a rapid enough rate for Day 3 draft picks to anticipate they'll significantly affect the rush on a line that already has questions with young players like Gervon Dexter and Zacch Pickens.

Someone less developmental and more immediate return might be needed, and those players can only be found among the discard pile or the unsigned free agent pile.

A year ago the Bears had first dibs on those available waiver wire candidates, but Carolina does now. The development of Austin Booker might need to be forced more than anyone would like. Or they could just give in and give Ngakoue's agent a call.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain

GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.