Bears rookie diaries with Tory Taylor, Austin Booker | Week 2
As told to Gabby Hajduk

Bears fourth-round pick Tory Taylor—a punter from Iowa—and fifth-round pick Austin Booker—a defensive end from Kansas—share their training camp experiences exclusively on ChicagoBears.com. This series will feature both players giving first-person accounts once a week throughout training camp.

It's been over two weeks since we reported to training camp and everything is going smooth. We've had a couple off days already and now it's our first game week. We're headed to Ohio today for the Hall of Fame Game Thursday. It's crazy to think this will be my first NFL game.

It's one of those things where sometimes you kind of forget where you've come from — you're living in the moment, doing your thing and just trying to keep it day-by-day. But then you sit back and realize where you're at. Even sitting on the sideline at practice, I just think, "wow, it's pretty cool to share the field with these guys."

I'm just grateful to be here. And I know it's a cliché saying, but I don't take this for granted whatsoever. It's the NFL. I always go back to — you never know when your last day is going to be, so I'm excited to have a chance to play this week.

Still, I don't let my routine really change between a practice and a game setting. A lot of people say that you can't replicate a game in practice, but I try to keep my mindset as if everything is the same, because only the environment changes. Whether I'm in the park kicking by myself, out on the practice field or in a stadium, it's all the same.

I use that mindset in all areas of football. It's a complicated game within itself, but I try to keep everything I do simple. Even looking at training camp as a whole, I don't really set any big, long-term goals. My goals are just day-by-day. I'm not looking three, four weeks ahead or even a year ahead. When I show up to this building, the only thing I'm worried about is football and what I need to accomplish today.

I think I've done a good job of that so far here and throughout my whole football career. My focuses are getting better as a punter and a holder, and I take that one step at a time. Everyone wants those overnight jumps, but that isn't realistic. The best thing I ever got told was, "the quickest way to success is just one percent each day."

One of my mentors and good friends of mine — Jason Baker — told me that. He was a punter at Iowa and then played in the league for a decade. He would always tell me that if I got one percent better every day, I'd be 37 times better in a year. So I'm a big believer in just compounding little things over time.

It's like money even. Everyone wants to make money overnight so they take massive risks. I don't need to get into too much detail, but I like to learn about that stuff. I've always thought there's never any day traders on the Forbes 100 list, but you see long-term investors like Warren Buffett. I just try and take that attitude into life and football as well.

Along with practices and game prep in the past week, we also had our second off day. I still came into the building Sunday morning to hit the hot tub and cold tub then grab breakfast and coffee. I got to relax a bit in my room and watch a bit of TV then grabbed a quick bite to eat with (long-snapper) Scales. We went to Lazy Dog for dinner which was cool.

Aside from Scales and (kicker) Cairo (Santos), I've also been able to learn about and spend more time with the entire team on the field and in meetings or just hanging around. That included the start of rookie performances in front of the entire team last week.

I sang Best I Ever Had by Drake without the music in the background, because I needed a way to separate myself from the rest. I'm happy with my performance. Everyone sang along and I didn't get booed or have to redo it. I would definitely say mine was one of the best and I think everyone would agree.

I'm excited about having the chance to go to an Aston Villa practice this Friday at Soldier Field. I'm a huge English soccer fan. I went to at least five Leeds United games last March when I went there on spring break. I was there for 10 days and went to every game I could. I actually saw Aston Villa play while I was there, so I'm looking forward to meeting a few of the guys and watching them go to work.

I also wanted to say thank you to the fans for coming out to practice throughout the past week. We obviously appreciate them coming out, especially during the week. I know some people probably take off work to come watch practice for a couple hours and I really appreciate that. I'm excited to see more of our fans out during camp and at Soldier Field for our games.

We're a couple weeks into practice now and I'm just enjoying being out on the field. I feel like I'm making good strides and picking up the defense quickly. Most defenses are similar, so if you know football and understand concepts, most of the calls make sense.

I feel like adapting quickly is something I've always been good at. Even going into college, it felt like I could dominate at practice my freshman year. Obviously, the NFL is a different speed, but it's similar in just being observant and learning on the fly. Once you see other dudes do it, you get a feel for how fast they jump the ball or how they time the snap to get off faster than someone else. Then it all starts to come together in your head, and you can see that on the field already.

There's still challenges, of course. I think the biggest things I still need to improve on are my pad level and my get off, because that either leads to a good start or a bad start from the jump. Everyone's been helping me with that from (defensive line) coach Travis (Smith) to the rest of the D-line guys who have been doing this for years.

Our defense, man, we just got some dogs. Tremaine (Edmunds), (Montez) Sweat, the whole secondary — dogs. We just got a bunch of talent on the field and once we start working on all cylinders, I feel like we'll be hard to beat.

Going up against these vets in practice has been huge too. My toughest matchup so far has definitely been Braxton (Jones). He's definitely one of the best tackles I've ever gone up against. He's just got such strong hands, knows when to shoot and shoots hard. As soon as he's got you locked in, there's not much you can do. I've been working on keeping space from him, but then learning when to press the pocket as well because sometimes you gotta sacrifice your body to get someone else open.

That type of work each practice has helped me feel confident in where I'm at. My goal of training camp is to just master the playbook more and more each day so that when I go on the field, I can play as fast as I can.

To me, playing fast leads to the dominance on the field that I'm always searching for. I learned the importance of that from my dad, who played defensive tackle through college. He went to a small Christian school northeast of Indianapolis.

My dad was the biggest influence on me as kid when it came to football. I started playing tackle football in kindergarten, so he got me in there early. He was the first one to teach me about mindset and going full speed all the time.

His main thing was, if you think you're dominant, you'll go out there and be dominant.

My dad actually made the drive from Indiana this weekend to watch practice and help me move furniture into my new place up here. It was cool to see him out here. While he was a big help to me growing up, he tries to be more hands off with it now because he knows I have top of the line coaching. So he tries to be a step away from football when I go talk to him about practice or a game rather than still critiquing things.

After this weekend of practices, we got an off day so I was able to be at my new spot and just chill, get off my feet. I just got a super comfy sectional, so spent a lot of time on that while watching film on my TV. So really just relaxing, getting my body right and eating a bunch to make sure I keep my weight on.

During our offseason break, I lost about three to four percent body fat, so my weight was lighter but I kept the same amount of muscle. Right now, I'm trying to eat two breakfasts or an extra dinner and snack before bed just to add more calories since I'm burning so much in camp. I feel like I'm holding my own in practice, so it's not an issue, but adding on a little more weight would help with stopping the run and being in the trenches.

Now I'm just looking forward to the Hall of Fame Game. It'll be our first team trip which will be cool, just getting more time with the guys. We definitely had some team bonding with the rookie performances last week.

I felt pretty good about mine. I rapped Freestyle by Lil Baby. I knew all the lyrics and got through the whole thing. It was fun to have the guys get into it too since everyone knows that song. I'd probably rank myself third right now, but Kiran (Amegadjie) was definitely the best then Rome (Odunze).

As far as the actual game Thursday, I'm just thinking about being back on the field.

I obviously want to go get a sack or two, but also go out there, do my job and show the team that I can be a good addition to the line this season.