Cardinals safety Budda Baker disrespected again by so-called NFL expert
By Adam Patrick
CBS Sports recently released a list of the top safeties in the NFL and Budda Baker of the Arizona Cardinals was shockingly not included.
In just his fourth season with the Arizona Cardinals, safety Budda Baker took his game to an extremely high level in 2020. Baker’s impressive performance last year resulted in his third Pro Bowl selection and his second appearance on the All-Pro First-Team.
Typically, if someone is selected as a First-Team All-Pro, it usually means they are among the best players in the entire NFL. Apparently, this isn’t the case for Baker, at least according to some people.
First, there was the absurd decision by Pro Football Focus to rank Baker as their 16th-best safety in the NFL. Now, CBS Sports has decided to hop on the bandwagon to disrespect the Cardinals All-Pro safety.
Arizona Cardinals safety Budda Baker not on CBS Sports Top-10 list
On Wednesday, CBS Sports’ Tyler Sullivan released his list of the 10 best safeties in the league heading into the 2021 season.
Sullivan’s list featured a bunch of predictable choices like Justin Simmons of the Denver Broncos, Minkah Fitzpatrick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Tyrann Mathieu of the Kansas City Chiefs. However, there was one glaring omission in his top-10 selections.
Baker was nowhere to be found on Sullivan’s list of the league’s top safeties. Apparently, getting selected as a First-Team All-Pro last season wasn’t good enough to be regarded as one of the NFL’s best safeties heading into the 2021 campaign.
Sullivan did include Baker in his list of safeties that just missed the top 10. But what is the point of that?
What does the Arizona safety have to do in order to gain the respect of those who cover the league for a living? Does he need to win the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award? Because that’s what it’s starting to seem like.
What happens if Baker earns another First-Team All-Pro selection in 2021? Does he get to be on anyone’s top-10 list in 2022 then? Or does he have to win the NFL MVP first?
5 Cardinals players you probably forgot about. light. Must Read
It’s fine if these analysts don’t want to pick Baker as one of their top few safeties on their lists. But to not regard him as a top-10 safety after the season he just had is flat-out ridiculous.