Bears rookie diaries with Tory Taylor, Austin Booker | Week 5
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.

We played our first game at Soldier Field Saturday and it was obviously a good time. First time being there with the fans, first time punting on that field, first win at home — I loved it.

The whole process of arriving at Soldier Field is different than college, where you just get on a bus every game and you're more restricted. Here, you can leave the hotel at your own time in the morning and drive through the city which is nice. I just like being able to operate on my own schedule.

I tried to keep my routine at the hotel the same as I would for any game. I had dinner, chilled out in the room and watched some TV. I finished the first season of Your Honor Friday night, so on to Season 2. Everyone out there should go watch, it's a great show.

I got up pretty early Saturday since it was a noon game and I like to be early. I made it to Soldier Field around 9 a.m.

These first few preseason games, I've been spending a little more time out on the field during warmups, just getting some extra kicks in. It's good to get my feel right before the game and I'm happy with where I'm at in that regard.

It was good to feel out the weather before the game too. The wind was swirling around a good bit and there was some on and off rain. You kind of just know you're going to get that with Chicago, though. And if it doesn't rain or it isn't windy, it's just an added bonus. Really, if you just follow your routine and make good contact with the ball on each punt, the weather is irrelevant.

As far as the actual game, I had three punts in the first half. I would say the first one was great, the second one was good and the last one was OK. Lots to work on still, but overall, I was pretty pleased with my first punts at Soldier Field.

On the first ball, I just had good hang time and distance. It felt nice off the foot for sure. With those, you kind of know right away that it's going to be solid just based off the contact. You can feel when you hit the fat part of the ball. And on the last punt, I made thin contact with the ball, so I knew it wasn't my best. In punting terms, I swiped across it.

It's one of those things where every day I'm trying to narrow the gap between my good and bad balls.

That progress will continue throughout my entire career. No one will ever be perfect. Even the best guys in the NFL, even some of my mates who are really good, they have a couple poor punts on the weekend. That's just part of it. I know there's going to be times I hit bad punts, but it's more so about how good is your "bad punt."

It was just nice to get some work in at our home field. Caleb and I were joking about that a little bit on the sideline. It's been cool to build that relationship with him as well. Caleb is obviously extremely talented on the football field, but first and foremost he's a great dude. I think we're all really fortunate to have him as a leader.

Cairo and I were talking about that on the sideline last week in Buffalo, too. Each game, Caleb comes and talks to us every couple drives just to chat about random things from the game. He doesn't have a specific reason to come down, but he makes that effort. That's just not typical of a quarterback, so it's something we really enjoy.

I had fun watching Caleb and the offense play the first half as well. I remember standing on the sideline watching his touchdown run. I just kept thinking, "get in there." He's zigzagging all over the place, but he made it in. He's obviously a very talented player and I think he's gonna take this team pretty far.

Another cool part of the game was seeing two kids — Max and Cooper Schlee — who I met at Iowa during Kid's Day almost exactly a year ago. Max was one of the Kid Captains during the season. Coincidentally, he was a captain on my birthday. We just connected and have kept in touch since then.

A couple weeks ago the community relations team here told me Max and Cooper were coming to our joint practice with the Bengals. It was really great to see them and have them break down the practice huddle with me. I didn't realize they would be on the field for gameday as well, so I got to see them another couple times before they headed back home.

It's pretty cool when you have a kid who looks up to you. Everyone was a kid at one point and you always look up to your heroes, so that stuff is important to me. It's obviously fun to see kids with a smile on their face and just have a good time in general.

I finally made my appearance on Hard Knocks this week. It was cool seeing that portion, but honestly, I've always watched Hard Knocks. I don't think I've missed a season. Every Tuesday at 8:00 p.m., I'm there ready to go.

My favorite season was the Cleveland Browns one in 2018 when Baker Mayfield was the No. 1 draft pick. Funny enough, I was actually a big Baker fan back in the day. I really liked him. He just didn't care what anyone thought about him. He just went out there and dominated. I like those kind of guys.

I think in our case, it's cool to give people good insight into who players are as people. You kind of get to understand that we're all human. We're all gonna make mistakes, but we're out there grinding and working hard. To me, it just gives fans a general look into the Bears and the day-to-day life of the player which is pretty cool.

Experiencing Soldier Field on gameday for the first time was definitely cool. Just the whole buildup of driving to the game, doing walk-ins and seeing everyone's fits, getting to the locker room then finally running out of the tunnel with all the smoke and fans cheering.

The fans at the stadium were definitely lit like I was hoping for. I definitely think it'll be more packed for the regular season which will be cool. I'm also looking forward to the first game that they announce the lineups as we run out of the tunnel. I think that'll be an unforgettable experience.

It was fun to drive to the hotel Friday evening and then drive to the stadium Saturday morning. Chicago always gives that nostalgic vibe and you feel that just going through downtown.

I just love the city so it's always cool to spend some time there. It was definitely a different vibe before the game, too. It's fun to actually play for the city now and be a part of Chicago.

Being from Greenwood, Indiana, Chicago has always been a good spot for when you need to get away. It was only a three-and-a-half-hour drive from home, so making a trip there always felt like a small vacation. It's the closest big city with a lot of good shopping, good food, good everything, really.

I'm big into fashion, so shopping in Chicago is definitely a good place for that. I'm excited to put together some gameday fits this season, but for the preseason game I wanted to keep it chill.

Every fit goes off the shoes, so I had on Undefeated Nike Dunks — all black — a Gallery Dept. zip-up and just some Lulu shorts. Just something slight for now. I feel like in the regular season, you can actually step out, so I'll be planning for that.

The game itself was a good time. It's always fun to get a win, especially at home. I feel like we've had a solid preseason so far and it's been cool being out on the field with the guys.

I definitely didn't play my best against the Bengals. I was in on a lot of plays, but I needed to be more of a playmaker. Coming out of that game, I want to work more on my inside rush.

On most plays, I'm the guy who is supposed to keep the quarterback contained and the tackle is supposed to rush inside. But sometimes we switch responsibilities and I'll rush inside from the edge. In those situations, I need to work on not wrapping too far and staying on my side. Just little things like that I want to keep improving on. Even though it's things I did in college too, the offensive linemen in the NFL are just better now, so it's a different level.

Even though the stats weren't there for me this game, I know I can always count on my hustle. And I know that's a big part of our culture here, with coach's HITS principle. That's something I definitely fit into naturally. I feel like I've always played hard no matter what, so it's a good fit.

I first learned about HITS on my visit with the Bears. From the jump in the draft process, they made it clear they liked my hustle. That was something they talked a lot about, so I figured it was an important piece here.

Having that hustle and intensity to lean on at the end of the day is big. And it's just realistic because in a game, even if the whole defense runs the wrong assignment, but everyone's running hard to the ball, it can still work out.

I feel like that mentality is big with the entire defensive line, so it's been nice to keep learning more from the vets in the room. All the guys — Montez, Jacob, D-Walker, Hardy — have different playing styles so you get a little something from everyone.

I've definitely gotten closer with Montez during camp. I'm like the little bro to him. It's nice to have that relationship because 'Tez has my exact build, so learning things from him can always translate to my game. I pay attention to his speed rush the most. I'm tall like him, so I watch how he gets around the corner on his speed rush since that can be hard sometimes.

'Tez just has a different mentality. You obviously need people who are telling you what you need to get better at and what you need to do differently. But you also need the one person who will say, "if you think you're gonna win the rep, you'll win the rep. If you don't think you'll get blocked, you won't get blocked." 'Tez has been that person and having someone like that in my corner is nice. I'm just looking forward to learning more from him and the rest of the D-line guys this season.