FRISCO, Texas – Heading into his rookie season in the NFL, Cowboys first-round pick Tyler Booker only missed one game in his collegiate career at Alabama to injury.
Dallas' starting right guard has missed the last three games, the most time he's missed in his football career, with a high ankle sprain. After practicing on Wednesday in a limited capacity, Booker appears to be on track for a return soon, potentially even on Sunday against the Commanders.
"Heading in that direction," Booker said. "Nothing's ever 100%, but I practiced today and I felt really good. I'm just continuing to take this thing day by day and trusting the trainers through the whole process."
It's rare for anyone, much less an offensive lineman, to recover as quickly as Booker has from his injury to get back into playing shape. Part of the equation to getting to this point this quickly was the Cowboys' training staff, whom Booker credited multiple times, but also his own eagerness to rejoin his teammates on the field.
"My mindset was just to attack the rehab process as if I'm attacking a game," Booker said. "So every day was a game to see how fast, see how I could get better day by day. And that's just how I approach football, how can I get better day by day?"
To put it into perspective, Booker was seen working on an assault bike while in a protective boot earlier in his injury process.
"The only way you get in football shape is by playing football," Booker said. "So I was trying to emulate that as much as I could being on that assault bike. That assault bike is something that helped me a lot in college, getting in shape, staying in shape throughout the season, so being on that was super helpful. I was very determined to get back on the field, I want to pick up where I left off."
While he's been sidelined, Booker's gotten to digest a new way to look at the offense and how to fit in it during his rookie season. It's not ideal, but it was a valuable time that he hopes translates in his return.
"It's tough watching," Booker said. "Obviously, I want to be out there, but it was very beneficial for me because I'm able to look at the offense from a different perspective. Just being a viewer, seeing why we do some of the things that we do and just learning from TJ [Bass], learning from Brock [Hoffman], learning from Tyler Smith, just learning from those guys and seeing some of the things that they do a little bit better than me that I can add to my own game."
One of the areas of Booker's game that he's realized he can build on is the mental side of things, especially when it comes to how playing with confidence can help at his position.
"I realized that the more confident I am, the better football player I am," Booker said. "I feel like that's a common theme that you can see through my first three games… I'm far from a finished product, believe me, but I feel like as long as I stay on that track of getting better day by day, game by game, I'll eventually be where I want to be."
Where he wants to be right now is back on the field, helping the Cowboys up front. When he had been through the course of the first three weeks, Dallas' run game was amongst the best in the league and he had a large part in why.
Even in his absence, T.J. Bass and the Cowboys have mostly been able to find consistency on the ground, and he believes that'll keep being the case when he comes back, but doesn't want to discredit the work his teammates have done in his place. .
"I believe I can have a great impact on this run game, but I don't want to shortchange TJ in any means and imagination," Booker said. "I learned a lot from TJ. TJ helps me a lot, and I feel like I wouldn't be as good of a run blocker if it wasn't for him."
Last week against the Panthers was a struggle up front for the Cowboys, who were only able to muster 31 yards on the ground. That weighs on the whole unit, and they know the only way to overcome it is by bouncing back Sunday against the Commanders.
"Whenever the run game isn't going the way it's supposed to, obviously the offensive line is going to feel some type of way about it," Booker said. "So all that we can do is do the next thing right, doing the next thing right is coming out and having a better outing in the run game this Sunday."
