According to Ian Rapoport, Budda Baker has requested a trade. Baker seemed frustrated with the Cardinals in recent weeks and it seems like he will be on his way out as Arizona’s defense gets even worse. Baker does have a bit of a big cap hit for any team that is acquiring him.
His value will go down because of that reason. The Cardinals get a cap savings of 2 million dollars by trading Baker but lose a massive talent in the secondary on a defense that lacks it.
According to Adam Schefter, Baker’s disagreements with the team started when he was not offered a contract extension when he wanted to be the highest-paid safety in the league
One could assume that the Cardinals will be looking for two late seconds/high-quality thirds in a possible deal for Baker. While he could have been worth a little more, due to his trade demand his price on the open market goes down. Additionally, Seattle got burned on the Jamal Adams trade and teams have taken notice of that.
A team that could be a possible fit is the New York Giants. The Giants aren’t really set in the secondary at their strong safety position and could benefit from moving newly acquired corner Bobby McCain to the slot position. They would create a pretty good secondary room headlined by Xavier McKinney, Adoree Jackson, and Budda Baker.
If the Eagles look to trade their 10th overall pick for more draft picks, some of those draft picks could be used on getting Budda Baker. Baker would allow Philadelphia to replace C.J. Gardner-Johnson by moving Terrell Edmunds to the free safety position.
This would allow the Eagles to have the dominant secondary that they had last year. While the whole defense helped guide the Eagles to the Super Bowl, their secondary was especially dominant last season.
Depending on what the Eagles get back in a trade for the tenth pick, this could allow Philly to address other needs while still fixing the secondary with some of the picks they get from a trade down.
Finding a third team to trade for Baker may be a little hard. The Patriots could be one but using a safety when you have other needs probably takes them out of the conversation. The Dolphins could make sense to add to their secondary core but with the amount of draft picks the team has this year it might not make sense as strong safety isn’t a huge need.
The Bengals would make sense as they have a need in the secondary but why would they let Jessie Bates go if they just went ahead and traded assets for a worse safety/secondary player? With the fact that you have to pay him top money in order to make him happy, Budda’s realistic suiters will be a bit short of teams that can form an epic secondary position group.