Eagles Trade Rumor? Budda Baker Just Killed It with Cardinals

Is Cardinals star safety Budda Baker no longer desirous of a trade to the Eagles? That's fine - as long as it is understood that the rumors didn't come from "outside noise.'' They came from inside Budda's "tunnel.''

In the end, it is entirely possible that Arizona Cardinals star Budda Baker's loud trade flirtation with the Philadelphia Eagles was all about money. And indeed, now that he's gotten a slight raise in the desert, the standout safety is talking of being "all in'' with his present employer.

“From my perspective, for me personally, I’ve just been tunnel vision,” said Baker from Cardinals camp. “For me, I’ve just been grinding and letting the outside noise be the outside noise. ... I'm all in.''

Part of what Baker means here is that he let his agent deal with the efforts to get a raise - and he has done that, with a slight bump in incentives on a deal that pays him $13 million in 2023 and $14.2 million in 2024.

He was seeking to move back up to being the highest-paid safety in the NFL - in the $20 mil range. Instead, Baker will remain ranking seventh among the highest-paid safeties for the 2023 season.

But "tunnel vision'' and "outside noise''? That is surely not the way Cardinals management would describe his conduct, which included a trade request and a public declaration of admiration for Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni.

“I like real. Just be real… Just be yourself,'' Budda said of Sirianni. “Don’t be anything else. Something that I really like is that Eagles coach. He is who he is.”

That - and the fact that the Eagles have lost talent at safety via free agency and are currently in training camp with a start-over trio of Reed Blankenship, Terrell Edmunds and third-round rookie Sydney Brown - fueled the fire of speculation. Would Philly pay up to make a trade happen? That was never likely. Would Baker hold out to force a trade? It never came to that.

Nevertheless, it is rather disingenuous of Baker to now claim that the Arizona issue was overblown. The Cardinals remain a losing program; the Eagles are defending NFC champs. There is all the reason in the world for a guy to want to shift from the former to the latter ... Though money is a bigger reason than any for some.

"I'm kind of laughing at it here and there, getting some smiles, getting some laughs out of it,'' Baker claimed of his reaction to offseason rumors. "But just understanding that if I put my head down and grind, everything else will take of itself. That’s what I’ve been doing and I feel great.”

Again, that really is great ... as long as it is understood that the rumors didn't come from "outside noise.'' They came from inside Budda Baker's "tunnel.''

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