Dallas Cowboys’ first-round draft pick Tyler Booker: ‘I lost too much’ at Alabama
During Tyler Booker’s three seasons at Alabama, the Crimson Tide compiled a 32-8 record, won the 2023 SEC championship and captured the 2022 Sugar Bowl.
But that was not what Booker expected to achieve before he departed for the NFL, which Alabama’s left guard did on Thursday night when the Dallas Cowboys selected him with the 12th pick in the 90th NFL Draft.
“I love to win, and I hate to lose,” Booker said at his introductory press conference. “I lost too much this past year. I lost too much, a lot more than I should have in college. Me being in Alabama, I left without a national championship, and that’s something that’s going to burn at me for the rest of my life, so I’m going to bring that burning passion and desire with me to the NFL and transfer that over to wanting to win Super Bowls.”
Booker had every reason to think eight losses in three seasons were too many at Alabama. In the seven seasons before Booker arrived, the Tide had played in six CFP national-championship games. Alabama had eight losses in those seven seasons, with three coming in the national-championship contest.
In Dallas, Booker enters a different situation. The Cowboys most recently played in the Super Bowl on Jan. 28, 1996, when Dallas won its third NFL championship in four seasons. The Cowboys haven’t advanced past the second round of the NFC playoffs since.
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But Booker still feels the luster of the franchise’s five Super Bowl victories and eight NFC championships.
“Me being in Alabama for the past three years has really prepared me for this moment and this day,” Booker said. “Alabama is a place known for greatness. There’s a lot of tradition. There’s a legacy there. There’s an aura when you walk into the building, and you feel it. You feel like you have a standard to live up to. And just as I felt like I’m walking into Mal Moore (Athletic Facility), that’s how I felt walking into the facility today. There’s a lot to live up to. There’s a legacy. There’s a standard that’s been upheld here for years, and I’m looking forward to continue to further that.”
Booker was among the 15 SEC players chosen in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night, tying the record for the most prospects picked from one conference in the opening round. The SEC also topped all conferences by providing 78 of the 257 players picked at the three-day event – the most from one league in a single draft.
“That’s why you play in the SEC,” Booker said. “You go to go against those great players. Iron sharpens iron. You don’t get better by going against lesser competition, and that was the whole point of me going to Alabama. Like being at Alabama, you’re everybody’s national championship, you’re everybody’s Super Bowl. Everybody’s going to give you their best shot. There’s going to be trick plays. They’re going to put stuff in front of you that they never put on film before, so you’re going to get everybody’s best shot at Alabama, so iron sharpens iron and I’ve gotten better going against some of the best defensive lines in college football the past three years. …
“Obviously, I’m getting that in-game competition, but I’m getting that in-practice competition. Like, I’m going against guys like Will Anderson, Dallas Turner, Henry To’oTo’o every single day. Like, especially as a freshman, that’s how you get better.”
If Booker wins an NFL championship with the Cowboys, he’d become the second member of his family with a Super Bowl ring. His uncle Ulish Booker was on Pittsburgh’s practice squad when the Steelers defeated the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 in Super Bowl XL on Feb. 5, 2006.
Booker already has followed his uncle in playing for coach Nick Saban – Ulish Booker at Michigan State and Tyler Booker at Alabama.
“Something my uncle especially helped me out with is coach Saban,” Tyler Booker said, “because he played for coach Saban for a couple years when he was at Michigan State, and it’s funny talking to him. So I remember I came back after my first spring at Alabama, I was telling him a story about coach Saban, and he just starts moving his hands like this. I was like, ‘How do you know he does that?’ Like, he did that 20-something years ago. He was like, ‘He’s the same person.’ Kind of gave me some hints on what to expect.”
Booker will get his first work for the Cowboys at the team’s rookie minicamp next month before joining the veterans in Dallas’ offseason program.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.