Elite $59 Million Safety on Expiring Deal Dubbed Packers’ Top Trade Target
The Green Bay Packers haven’t shied away from making blockbuster trades over the past couple of offseasons, though they have often sold the big name in return for draft assets.
Green Bay could flip to the other side of the coin once free agency hits in March and make a move for a known name on a pricey deal, though perhaps one that doesn’t lock the organization into a pre-negotiated contract beyond 2024.
Bleacher Report’s Scouting Department on Monday, January 29, mapped out an offseason trade guide for the Packers, suggesting that Arizona Cardinals safety Budda Baker should be Green Bay’s top target.
“Green Bay could potentially lose safeties Jonathan Owens, Christian Uphoff and Darnell Savage in free agency this year,” the scouts wrote. “Dealing for Arizona safety Budda Baker, who is entering the final year of his contract, could help reload the secondary quickly.”
Budda Baker Remains Among Elite NFL Safeties, Could Help Packers Make Another Deep Playoff Run
Baker is an elite safety. That word can be overused in the world of hypothetical trade proposals and free-agency predictions, but where Baker is concerned, it’s the only applicable adjective.
Arizona drafted the safety in 2017, and he promptly earned first-team All-Pro honors as a rookie. Across seven NFL seasons, Baker has landed a spot on one of the All-Pro teams three times as well as Pro-Bowl nods in six campaigns.
Baker signed a four-year, $59 million deal with the Cardinals in August 2020. He tried, unsuccessfully, to renegotiate his contract ahead of the 2023 season — demanding that Arizona either make him the NFL’s highest-paid safety or trade him elsewhere. The team did neither, and Baker ended up playing 12 games for the Cardinals and earning another Pro-Bowl trip.
Budda Baker Probably Too Costly for Packers in Trade, Unless Both Sides Agree to Extension
Baker has just one season remaining on his deal, though he does carry a $19 million salary cap hit, which is a serious problem for a team like Green Bay. The organization has just $4.8 million in estimated cap space as of Monday.
As such, the more sensible play for the Packers is to trade for Baker and then extend him, which would allow the two sides to rework his contract and lower his cap hit in the immediate. It would also address a potential deficiency on the defense moving forward, which will be a focus this offseason as the team searches for a new coordinator to replace the fired Joe Barry.
Baker is only 28 years old, and while both his advanced analytics and his traditional counting statistics took a dive in 2023, he is still an elite playmaker with time on his side. He has also missed only 10 of a possible 115 regular-season games across the course of his career, which bodes well for his health moving forward.
Making Baker the top-paid safety in football probably wouldn’t be good business for Green Bay. But upping his pay to something like $15 or $16 million annually over the course of three or four seasons could make sense if the new DC likes Baker’s fit.
The organization can mitigate Baker’s initial cap hit by structuring the deal with a considerable signing bonus and still free up $21 in space by cutting or trading left tackle David Bakhtiari this summer — an outcome that is more or less a given considering his recent injury problems and a $40 million cap hit in 2024.
