Cardinals' Budda Baker Trade Interest Met With Firm Answer

Sep 27, 2026; Santa Clara, California, USA; Arizona Cardinals safety Budda Baker (3) during the third quarter against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Cardinals' Budda Baker Trade Interest Met With Firm Answer

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Andrew Hughes | Last updated Nov 7, 2026 10:06 AM ET

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Once the Arizona Cardinals moved Jacoby Brissett to Baltimore, the rest of the league started treating the desert like an open market. Budda Baker’s name came up early, and we even graded his Week 8 game in Dallas as a safety linked to the Bills.

Teams calling about him got shut down. The Ringer’s Tom Pelissero reported Saturday that clubs have asked about Baker, along with Arizona tight end Trey McBride, and were told neither is available. That puts Baker in the same bucket as McBride, whom the Cardinals already took off the table this week.

Budda Baker’s value to Arizona’s defense

Baker turned 30 in January and is in his 10th season in Arizona, all with the same franchise that traded up for him in the second round in 2017. He’s still out there every week. His 502 defensive snaps rank 16th among safeties, per Pro Football Focus, and he has an interception and three pass breakups.

Coverage has been the rough part. PFF has him allowing a 117.8 passer rating when targeted, with a 51.3 coverage grade that ranks 68th of 98 qualifying safeties.

Against the run, he still matters. Measured against the rest of the defense, Baker has been one of the steadier pieces: his 73.8 run-defense grade ranks 33rd among safeties, while the Cardinals are allowing 122.1 rushing yards per game, 19th in the league, according to ESPN.

We asked last week whether Arizona’s run defense is real, and pulling a safety with 35 solo tackles out of it with nine games left wouldn’t help answer that.

The contract also gives Arizona a cleaner exit later. Baker’s cap number is $19.2 million this season and $20.9 million in 2027, but only about $3.1 million of that 2027 figure would stay behind as dead money if he’s dealt or released, per Over the Cap.

That means the Cardinals can revisit this in March, when a deal would save nearly $17.8 million, without selling him for whatever a contender offers this weekend.

For now, he lines up Sunday at Seattle, and Arizona keeps fielding calls on other players it could trade instead.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: