Budda Baker

Nine straight seasons of starter-volume tackling — and a career-high 153 at age 28.

After what looked like a decline year in 2023 (12 games, 76 tackles), he came back in 2024 with a career-high 153 tackles at age 28 — one of the highest single-season totals by a safety in the database. 2025 settled to 117 in 16 games, still elite production.

950 career tackles — the most by any safety since 2017.

950 career tackles since entering the league in 2017 — 104 more than Kevin Byard, 158 more than Jordan Poyer, 222 more than Harrison Smith. He's the unambiguous tackle leader among safeties of his era, and he's still adding to it.

Out-tackled 95% of the league's LBs over 2024-2025 — as a safety.

Across 2024-2025 combined, Baker had 270 tackles — 8th among ALL defenders, and the only safety in the top 30. The 7 names ahead of him are all off-ball linebackers whose job is to lead their team in tackles. Baker's job is to play centerfield. The Cardinals just trust him to fly downhill every snap.

He's the all-time Arizona safety tackle king — Baker owns 6 of the franchise's top-10 single-season totals.

Six of the franchise's ten most productive single seasons by a safety belong to Baker. He's pushed past Pat Tillman's franchise-iconic 2000 season (119) twice — and at 153 in 2024 his career year is 34 tackles clear of Tillman's. The only non-Baker safety in the top 4 is Antoine Bethea (2018).

The non-takeaway safety — only 9 career INTs but a tackle profile that looks like a Hall-of-Fame LB.

For all the tackle production, takeaways have never been his thing — just 9 career INTs in nine seasons (peak: 3 in 2021). The comp here isn't Earl Thomas or Ed Reed; it's a hybrid box safety / hyper-aggressive LB whose value lives in run support and underneath coverage. 51 career TFLs from a safety is nearly unheard of.

2024 was a top-5 single-season tackle line by any safety in the database — at age 28.

153 tackles in 17 games — a 9.0/game pace. The only safeties on record with 150+ in a season since 2017 are a handful of off-ball-defender hybrids; Baker's 2024 is among the highest totals ever recorded at the position.

What makes it more impressive: this came in the year after his ‘decline' season (76 tackles in 12 games in 2023, no PDs, no INTs, no splash). The bounce-back was 77 more tackles in 5 more games, plus 10 TFLs, 5 PDs, 2 sacks, and a forced fumble — splash plays that had disappeared in 2023.