{"id":905819,"date":"2026-05-31T03:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/905819\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T03:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:00:17","slug":"chicago-bears-head-coach-ben-johnson-notices-austin-bookers-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/905819\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bears Head Coach Ben Johnson Notices Austin Booker’s Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

It just takes a quick glimpse to see the difference in Austin Booker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Bears<\/a>\u2019 defensive end has gained some mass since the end of last season. Booker joined Cubs Live on the Marquee Sports Network<\/a> before throwing out the first pitch on May 18, and said he has added six pounds of muscle.<\/p>\n

One person who has noticed the change is Bears coach Ben Johnson.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe’s another one that missed some time last year,” Johnson said during OTAs. “So I think the more time on task we have as a coaching staff, how we’re coaching things, I think it\u2019s just going to add up. He’s still a young player. He’s still developing. His body’s changed since he came in the building a year ago, and even from where we ended the season even until when he came back in for the spring program. He continues to add more mass and become a stronger player. He gets smarter as we go, and I think the coaching is really going to be conducive to his style of play as well. It\u2019s reps, reps, reps with all these players, all these young guys. The more reps they get, the better they’re going to get.\u201d<\/p>\n

The more reps Booker got last season, the more he showed what he was capable of as a pass rusher. The Bears’ pass rusher didn’t see the field until Week 9 because of a knee injury and played 37 total defensive snaps and registered one sack-fumble in his season debut against the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With season-ending injuries to Dayo Odeyingbo<\/a> and Shemar Turner<\/a>, Booker’s snaps increased. From Weeks 15 through the Divisional Round in the playoffs, the former fourth-round draft pick from Kansas registered 23 of his 35 total quarterback pressures and five of his six sacks.<\/p>\n

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He logged a season-high seven quarterback pressures against the Cleveland Browns<\/a> and finished with two sacks, according to Pro Football Focus<\/a>. In the wild-card win over the Green Bay Packers<\/a>, Booker added five quarterback pressures and a sack on Jordan Love<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bears defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett told GNSports<\/a> during OTAs that he’s focusing on improving Booker’s consistency with his stance and explosion off the ball. And the coaching staff is also prioritizing fundamentals and technique to help the D-line this season.<\/p>\n

With more muscle, another year in Dennis Allen’s defense and a clean bill of health, Booker is in line to have a breakout season in Year 3.<\/p>\n

“This is definitely the year that I’m looking to get those double-digit sacks,” Booker told Marquee Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It just takes a quick glimpse to see the difference in Austin Booker. The Chicago Bears\u2019 defensive end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[7240,374,1035,692,391,2493,256,54,593,7,345,1724,25169,6,1163],"class_list":["post-905819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bears","tag-austin-booker","tag-bears","tag-ben-johnson","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bears","tag-chicagobears","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cleveland-browns","tag-dayo-odeyingbo","tag-football","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-jordan-love","tag-marquee-sports-network","tag-nfl","tag-shemar-turner"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116666959407112743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}