After 2 early drops, Booker catches on
Veteran wide receiver Marty Booker had been only an occasional contributor to the Bears' passing game in the first six weeks, never catching more than 3 passes or accumulating more than 37 yards in a game.
Pretty dismal numbers for a player who in 2001 and '02 caught 100 and 97 passes, respectively, in back-to-back seasons in his first go-round with the Bears for 2,260 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Sunday, a perfect fall day for football at Soldier Field, didn't start out any better for Booker. He had two opportunities for touchdown catches but wasn't able to hang on to either one. With the Bears at the Vikings' 14 on the first play of the second quarter, Kyle Orton led Booker perfectly on a skinny post, but he dropped the pass that hit him in the hands.
With 4:02 left in the second quarter, from the Vikings' 24-yard line, Booker beat the coverage to the end zone again, this time on a flag route, but he couldn't handle a pass that was just slightly behind him but still grazed off his fingertips.
"I told him right away when it happened I was coming back to him," Orton said. "Marty is a great pro and a great receiver. I certainly expected him to make the plays that he didn't make, but there's no lack of confidence in him at all that he would come back and make plays for us. No question about it."
Orton's confidence paid off when Booker turned his his 5-yard flip late in the third quarter into a 51-yard TD by accelerating through a triangle of Vikings defenders and outrunning them to the end zone.
"Just a little simple 5-yard route," Booker said. "Just try to catch it and get a move on a guy and then I saw it opened up and I just wanted to race to the end zone. Nothing spectacular, just running wide open."
Booker's second TD of the season was payback for his earlier miscues.
"I let a couple get away from me in the first half, and it kind of bothered me," he said. "But I knew Kyle would come back to me, so it was just a matter of, when those opportunities came to me, I just had to take advantage of them. I let a couple slip away, so when that came to me, I had to get it into the end zone."
Booker finished with 3 catches and a Bears-best 79 receiving yards, more than doubling his previous best game this season. He still has a modest 11 catches for 183 yards, but his 16.6-yard average is tied for the team best as are his 2 touchdowns.