The 2024 NFL Draft is getting close, making it an excellent time to highlight some of the class' best players with scouting reports. Each report will include strengths, weaknesses and background information.
Here's our report on Austin Booker.
Booker will be an intriguing prospect as teams project him to the next level given that he has only played 505 snaps in his Kansas career. The question teams will have to assess and answer is not what he is now as a player but what he can become as he develops with NFL coaching and more snaps.
Booker is long with plus athleticism and movement, which he showed in flashes throughout his tape both as a run defender and edge pass rusher. His tape shows he has the body to develop into a quality edge pass rusher. He shows enough quickness, hand usage and speed-to-power to lead you to believe that he can become a situational rusher if not a full-time player. Booker’s tape also showed some significant concerns, and it is my sense that could make him a polarizing prospect depending on how teams balance what he could develop into vs. the weaknesses that consistently showed up and may not be correctable or fixable.
Booker showed a tendency to play too upright, which limited his ability to play with needed bend and flexibility, especially as a pass rusher. He also showed a glaring tendency to be slow and sluggish off the ball, which prevented him from challenging tackles on the high side.
Overall Booker lacked the kind of play strength he will need to play effectively on the edge, and with his long wiry frame and 240-pound weight, he will need to transition to the next level as an on-the-ball in a 5-2 front if he is to play in your base defense.
Can Booker add meaningful weight and strength and become a defensive end in a four-man base front? That’s part of the projection with him, and different evaluators and coaches will have different points of view about that. Booker showed enough flashes on tape to believe that he could develop into a quality edge player at the next level, but that is not a certainty. Much will depend on how he is coached and his growth and development.
Booker came out of Indiana as a 3-star recruit and began his career at Minnesota before transferring to Kansas, where he played one season and recorded outstanding numbers: 56 tackles, 12 TFL and eight sacks.
Booker had some strong snaps vs. Texas LT Kelvin Banks in the run game and as a pass rusher. Booker was consistently dominant vs. Banks.
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