{"id":292084,"date":"2025-08-16T06:41:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T06:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/292084\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T06:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T06:41:16","slug":"former-uw-football-all-american-ranked-no-34-in-nfl-top-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/292084\/","title":{"rendered":"Former UW football All-American ranked No. 34 in NFL Top 100"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the Arizona Cardinals<\/a> selected former Washington Huskies<\/a> star safety Budda Baker in the second round of the 2017 NFL draft, it didn’t take long for the All-American to prove that he has what it takes to develop into a star at the NFL level.<\/p>\n

Over his eight-year career, Baker has compiled 901 tackles, 47 for loss, 9.5 sacks, 39 pass breakups, 7 interceptions, 7 forced fumbles, and 5 fumble recoveries on his way to seven Pro Bowl appearances and four All-Pro honors, including a pair of First Team All-Pro selections from his rookie season in 2017 and 2020.<\/p>\n

Coming off a career-high 164 tackles last season, which was good for No. 2 in the NFL, Baker rocketed up the NFL Top 100, a list voted on by players around the league, after he was ranked at No. 89 ahead of his stellar 2024 campaign, which earned him Second Team All-Pro honors.<\/p>\n

“He’s a dog,” Cardinals tight end Trey McBride said in an interview on NFL Network. “He’s a guy who’s the heart and soul of our defense. He just loves being out there; he’s a psycho. He just hits everything.”<\/p>\n

“Budda Baker just flies around, man,” San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy added. “You’ve always got to know where he’s at because he’s trying to hunt somebody.”<\/p>\n

Baker has been a versatile piece for the various coaching staffs that have come in to coach Arizona during his career, and no matter who’s at the helm, he’s found a way to produce. He’s surpassed 100 tackles in five of his eight seasons because he thrives in the box as a run defender.<\/p>\n

“I ain’t never seen nobody play the box like him,” Detroit Lions safety Brian Branch said. “You know, there’s a reason why he always has like 100-plus tackles.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the Arizona Cardinals selected former Washington Huskies star safety Budda Baker in the second round of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[323,247,265,375,390,2604,1838,322,20844,8079,2935,1524,2639,2644,8967,1238,1327,318,339,7,20842,4649,7993,248,267,88,6,245,537,530,2640,1602,1982,9,266,1980,2340,6042,855,4650],"class_list":{"0":"post-292084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-323","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-arizona","12":"tag-arizona-cardinals","13":"tag-arizonacardinals","14":"tag-baker","15":"tag-big","16":"tag-big-10-hub","17":"tag-branch","18":"tag-brian","19":"tag-brian-branch","20":"tag-brock","21":"tag-brock-purdy","22":"tag-budda","23":"tag-budda-baker","24":"tag-cardinals","25":"tag-college","26":"tag-college-sports","27":"tag-football","28":"tag-hub","29":"tag-huskies","30":"tag-mcbride","31":"tag-national","32":"tag-national-sports","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-nfl","35":"tag-overall","36":"tag-overall-positive","37":"tag-positive","38":"tag-purdy","39":"tag-smg","40":"tag-smg-timely","41":"tag-sports","42":"tag-sports-news","43":"tag-timely","44":"tag-trey","45":"tag-trey-mcbride","46":"tag-washington","47":"tag-washington-huskies-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115037083180293569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}