Budda Baker leads the Arizona Cardinals in sacks, which is not something anyone expected to write about a safety in his 10th season. His second-quarter takedown of Matthew Stafford for an 8-yard loss in Sunday’s 18-16 win over the Los Angeles Rams lifted him to 3.5 sacks through six games, already more than he had managed in any of his first nine seasons. His previous high was two.
On Monday, a reporter asked him what the secret was. Baker passed the question to his defensive coordinator. “Hey, tell Nick to, you know, call me on some pressures, man,” he said, meaning Nick Rallis. “It’s definitely, you know, nice to get in the backfield a little bit, but also, you know, kudos to our defensive players, everyone doing their jobs.”
“That’s why football is the ultimate team sport”
Arizona’s defense had the game won until the final minute. Puka Nacua took a short pass 43 yards to the Arizona 34, and Stafford finished the drive with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Colby Parkinson, putting the Rams ahead 16-15 with 47 seconds left. Baker did not hide what he thought of letting that drive happen. “Obviously, on me being a defensive player, we would like to make that stop and, you know, not even put the offense in that position,” he said. “But, you know, that’s why football is the ultimate team sport.”
On Arizona’s first snap after the kickoff, a Rams defender jumped offside, and Baker said that was when he relaxed. He knew Jacoby Brissett would take a shot with the free play. Brissett went over the middle to Jalen Brooks for 21 yards, and Josh Wallace was flagged 15 more yards for unnecessary roughness on the hit. Baker called it a catch made “with some head contact, beautiful.” Chad Ryland then hit a 43-yarder as time expired. It was his sixth field goal of the day, and every Arizona point. “I knew Chad was going to, you know — he was good within 60 for me,” Baker said.
“If the running back tries to block you, you hit them”
Mike LaFleur and Rallis turned Arizona loose against the league’s top-ranked offense. According to the team’s website, the Cardinals blitzed 13 times, their most this season, and Baker and Josh Sweat each got home for a sack. Baker finished with six tackles, two tackles for loss, two quarterback hits and a pass breakup.
His most important rush did not show up as a sack. On fourth-and-8 at the Arizona 44 with 3:23 to play and the Cardinals up 15-9, Stafford threw incomplete to running back Kyren Williams. Baker said he could tell from Williams that something was coming. Baker would not explain the whole call, but he gave away part of it. “Certain calls were just to have understanding on, you know, if the running back tries to block you, you hit them,” he said. “I’m rushing the quarterback and I see the running back not wanting to block me, something’s up.”
He also explained the risk that comes with those calls. When a safety blitzes and the quarterback gets the ball out quickly, often on a screen, the rest of the defense has to cover for him. “You’re going into a pressure while they’re throwing a screen,” Baker said. Everyone who rushed, he said, has to “retrace” and get back to the receiver or running back who caught it, with “all 11” running to the ball.
Ignoring the noise around Rallis
The win came after a month of bad defense. Before Sunday, Arizona had lost four straight games and given up 31, 36, 36 and 45 points. Outside the building, many people expected Rallis’ job to be in danger. Asked how the coordinator had handled that, Baker said the players were doing the same thing he was. “You hear the outside noise, but you ignore the outside noise, and that’s the biggest thing for us,” he said. “And that’s, you know, probably exactly what Nick is doing as well. He’s just focused on putting the game plan for us to be able to execute and play fast.”
Baker put the blame on the players, not the coordinator. “I think we just need to execute better, and we will,” he said. LaFleur has said he had tough conversations with players and coaches during the week. Baker said everyone took something from them: “each and every person, player, staff, coach, just taking accountability.” He also said the roster has more talent than people realize. “We have a lot of special players on the team and, you know, not a lot of people know them, but it doesn’t matter,” he said. “In order for that to be known, we got to win more.”
“Unc” and a Larry Fitzgerald memory
Baker was drafted 36th overall out of Washington in 2017 and has spent all 10 of his seasons in Arizona. He said that is why his teammates call him “Unc,” though he does not think he plays like one. “It’s great to be able to be in the same organization for 10 years,” he said. Through six games he has 42 tackles, 3.5 sacks, an interception and four passes defensed. He played Sunday through a groin injury that had him listed as questionable.
Arizona (2-4) hosts the Denver Broncos on Sunday. At halftime, Larry Fitzgerald will go into the Cardinals’ Ring of Honor and the team will retire his No. 11. Asked for his favorite memory of Fitzgerald, Baker went back to his hometown. He grew up in the Seattle area, and he picked Kyler Murray scrambling and throwing the ball up for Fitzgerald, who caught it one-handed for a touchdown in Seattle. “Just to hear the crowd being that loud, being from there and raised there, just for them to just be silent, that was something definitely special,” Baker said. He also brought up the “Larry, Larry” chants every time Fitzgerald made a catch at home. “That’s a living legend,” he said.
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