After transferring from Minnesota in 2023, Booker was named All-Big 12 and Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year at Kansas last season. He had 56 total tackles and 8.0 sacks in his one season as a Jayhawk.
The Bears traded a 2025 fourth-round pick to the Bills, allowing them to sneak back into the fifth round of the most recent draft to select Booker with the 144th overall pick. Some mock drafts put him far higher than the fifth round, but when he was still available, GM Ryan Poles was understandably aggressive in his pursuit of the young defensive end.
The pick they received back from the Bills was, strangely enough, their own. They utilized it to trade for the offensive lineman Ryan Bates.
Booker will most likely be a depth player this season, with top defensive end Montez Sweat flanked on the opposite end by Dominique Robinson and DeMarcus Walker. Training camp will be an excellent opportunity for someone to earn the other defensive end job, but with neither Robinson nor Walker under contract until 2025, developing Booker will be a critical long-term aim for the Bears.
For those keeping track, this makes three of the five draft picks signed, following the signings of Tory Taylor (link) and Kiran Amegadjie (link) in the last week.
Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze, both first-round picks, remain unsigned, but it’s far too early to be concerned.
