Eagles’ Zack Baun, ‘a superstar, mega-athlete,’ is still growing as an NFL linebacker

A casual viewing of an open-gym basketball game at the Brown Deer High School field house in the summer of 2014 quickly turned into a recruiting trip for Rob Green.

The head coach of the school’s football team in the northern suburbs of Milwaukee, Green had just departed a weightlifting and conditioning session when he came across the game and began to chat with spectators. A mystery student-athlete on the court who elevated “like he was on a pogo stick,” Green said, pulled off a one-handed dunk and interrupted Green’s conversation.

Green did a double take. The football coach didn’t recognize the player. The school’s basketball coach enlightened an inquisitive Green.

That’s Zack Baun. He moved into the district.

» READ MORE: Nick Foles had an unforgettable NFL career with the Eagles. But it’s one that doesn’t ‘define him.’

That, in Green’s mind, was a future member of the Brown Deer football team if he had a say in the matter.

Baun was a standout basketball player in Wisconsin who had grown disinterested in football. West Bend East, his former high school where he was a wide receiver, lacked a strong program. But at the behest of a friend, the incoming junior decided to give the sport another chance and accepted Green’s invitation to a July football camp.

He wouldn’t remain a receiver for long. After snaring a pass on a slant route, getting vertical, and scoring a touchdown on a 40-yard play, Baun threw the ball back to the heir apparent at quarterback for 50. Heir apparent? Apparently not.

During training camp, Green offered Baun the chance to start at quarterback. The 17-year-old responded with an affirmative refrain that he would repeat several times throughout his football career when faced with a position change: “If it’s going to help the team.”

“That’s been a common trend throughout my career,” said Baun, who went on to account for 94 touchdowns passing and rushing through 22 games in his two-year Brown Deer career. “From that time, I guess I’ve always just been an athlete. I can do a lot of different things and whatever I try to do, or whatever I set out to do, I want to be the best at it.”

Ten years and two more position changes later, the versatile Baun is settling in as a starting inside linebacker with the Eagles alongside Nakobe Dean, breaking out with a two-sack, 15-tackle performance in Week 1 against the Green Bay Packers. He began to learn the position with the New Orleans Saints, the team that drafted him in the third round out of Wisconsin in 2020.

But the 27-year-old Baun has mostly served as a core special-teamer throughout his five-year NFL career, until now. Each challenge has prepared him for the next one, leading to his first full-time starting gig in the NFL.

When Paul Chryst would recruit high schoolers for his Wisconsin football program as its head coach from 2015-22, some of them were close-minded about the positions they would play at the Division I level. Baun wasn’t, he recalled.

At 6-foot-3, 221 pounds as an incoming freshman in 2015, Baun was recruited as a gray-shirt linebacker by the previous coaching staff under Gary Andersen. The new regime wanted to keep Baun, a local product, and transition him to a weak side outside linebacker in its 3-4 base defense. The coaches admired his athleticism — Tim Tibesar, the former Wisconsin outside linebackers coach, saw the football and basketball highlights — and thought he had the right frame for the role.

“Whatever we thought was best for him, he’d have gone all-in on it,” said Chryst, who made Baun a full member of the 2015 class upon his hiring.

As a redshirt in his first year at Wisconsin, Baun learned the position behind the likes of Joe Schobert, Vince Biegel, and T.J. Watt, who each went on to an NFL career. According to Andrew Van Ginkel, the current Minnesota Vikings linebacker who transferred to Wisconsin in 2017, linebackers in the Badgers program possessed a similar makeup. They weren’t heavily recruited, five-star prospects. The chips on their shoulders spurred a strong work ethic.

Each player also boasted a versatile skill set. According to Tibesar, Wisconsin looked for a “different guy” to play outside linebacker compared to other programs.

“We wanted these edges to be true linebackers, rather than just defensive ends with their hand down,” Tibesar said. “And we asked them to be able to drop into coverage and do coverage things in addition to being rushers.”

Baun cultivated those skills and that work ethic in practice before putting it all together at Camp Randall Stadium. Cole Van Lanen, the former Wisconsin offensive tackle who now plays for the Jacksonville Jaguars, remembered “that tenacity and that quickness” that Baun boasted in one-on-one pass rush reps. He excelled at slapping tackles’ hands down on his speed rush, according to Logan Bruss, another ex-Wisconsin tackle who now plays for the Los Angeles Rams.

Game action on defense wasn’t easy for Baun to come by at first. He missed the entire 2017 season with a foot injury. Patience, persistence, and a positive attitude paid off. Baun started all 27 games in his final two seasons in 2018 and 2019, ranking second in the Big Ten in his final year with 19½ tackles for losses and 12½ sacks. He also notched six pass breakups and two interceptions through the two seasons.

“He had a real knack for bending the corner, being an athlete, playing in space, which I know was helpful in that scheme, because he can then drop out and cover some slot receivers or even a running back, depending on where he was on the field,” said Jared Thomas, a former Northwestern offensive lineman who played against Baun. “Zack was always a superstar, mega-athlete.”

Baun bulked up to 238 pounds by the time he reached his draft year in 2020, but he was still undersized compared to most NFL edge rushers. He was more likely to land a job as an off-the-ball linebacker at the next level, a projection that Bobby King, the Eagles inside linebackers coach, agreed with while scouting Baun in the same role with the Houston Texans.

“I saw it just in the limited reps at Wisconsin,” King said. “I thought he really, really could get off blocks well and I just thought I saw a really, really good ceiling coming out of college.”

Like he did at Wisconsin, Baun learned from talented veterans in New Orleans, including Demario Davis and Kwon Alexander, who have three Pro Bowls and one All-Pro nod between them. He also welcomed insight from Pete Werner, whom the Saints drafted in the second round in 2021 out of Ohio State and had played the position longer than Baun had.

» READ MORE: Jalen Hurts can stumble all he wants. This Eagles offense, with Saquon Barkley, is the best in team history

Baun never earned a full-time starting opportunity in Dennis Allen’s 4-3 defensive scheme. He took the same approach to adversity as he did at Wisconsin, maintaining his patience, persistence, and positive attitude throughout four seasons with the Saints.

“If you’re not playing, if you’re in a backup position, if you’re on special teams, it’s important to keep learning and keep growing, ‘cause you never know when your opportunity is going to come,” Baun said.

In 2023, he started to see the field more often. Baun lined up on the edge and in the box while executing a variety of assignments in both alignments, from rushing the passer to stopping the run to dropping into coverage. The snaps in the box were more of a rarity (33 compared to 252 on the edge, according to Pro Football Focus), but he flashed enough instincts off the ball to pique the interest of Vic Fangio.

The Eagles’ defensive coordinator had previous success finding a role for another versatile Wisconsin linebacker during his one-year stint with the Miami Dolphins in 2023. At the outset of the season, the Dolphins had two talented edge rushers in Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips, so Fangio approached the fifth-year veteran Van Ginkel about taking more snaps from the inside linebacker position to get on the field.

Van Ginkel said he saw the vision: He was a good athlete in space who could cover and blitz from the box, which would increase the likelihood of a mismatch in pass protection against a running back. He thrived under Fangio, going from 29% of the defensive snaps in 2022 to 66% in 2023 and finishing the season with career highs in sacks (six) and pass breakups (eight).

While Van Ginkel was still more of an on-the-ball linebacker in Fangio’s system, both players are versatile in their defensive abilities. Van Ginkel said his experience exploiting different matchups last season can work in Baun’s favor, too, and in a single showing against the Packers, it already did.

“I’m just proud of him, ‘cause he didn’t get [many] opportunities in New Orleans,” said Van Ginkel, who signed a two-year, $20 million deal with the Vikings after his standout season. “But to see him go to Philadelphia and get that opportunity, get the chance to show what he’s capable of and play at a high level, obviously I always knew that he could do what he did against Green Bay. He’s a heck of a player and a heck of an athlete.”

Going into Week 1, Baun said he wanted to play freely. As a result, the motor and toughness that Nick Sirianni raved about during training camp showed up on the field. The head coach highlighted a play in which Baun came off the edge on a bubble screen and quickly dropped 5 yards into coverage, tackling Emmanuel Wilson for no gain.

In a short window, King has learned that Baun is his own harshest critic, even after the best defensive performance of his NFL career. The coach preaches the “24-hour rule” in his room, giving his players a day to move on from a game, good or bad.

“He’s still a baby at this position,” King said. “He’s making plays and stuff, but if you ask him if he left some plays out there, there’s still a huge step to take with his game.”

Still, Baun set a foundation for how he can leverage his versatility in Fangio’s defense and help the group find collective success. Thomas, now a center for the USFL’s Memphis Showboats, said that offensive lines typically account for a middle or weakside linebacker in pass protection on base downs. But in pressure situations, he said that a player like Baun who can blitz from the box can put an “offensive line in peril” if it has to account for him in protection, potentially leaving a free rusher on the edge.

Of course, Baun is also familiar with rushing the passer from the edge, as he did at Wisconsin.

“The fact that he can fly around, be an athlete, which I think plays to his strengths, but that he understands blitzing from a linebacker position, getting lined up on the edge,” Thomas said. “It’s like he’s right back in Madison, and that’s going to be such a plus for [the Eagles] defense.”

Baun also possesses an ability to disguise the coverage before the snap and throw off an offense. A simulated pressure in which Baun showed blitz off the edge, then dropped into coverage in the third quarter, forced Jordan Love to make a bad decision by attempting to target Luke Musgrave over middle of the field. Baun’s coverage underneath the route allowed Reed Blankenship to swoop in and snare an interception.

“Anything you can do to keep offensive coordinators there late at night — ‘cause we’re there late at night — an extra hour or two always makes you feel kind of good, so they have to game plan for him,” King explained.

This season, Baun will attempt to pull off the objective of the one-year, “prove-it” deal he signed with the Eagles in the offseason. The intrinsic motivation to be the best athlete he can be has intensified while making yet another kind of transition in his life. Baun is a first-time father to his son, Elian, who was born in April. He said that his whole world, including his perspective on his football career, changed when he became a father.

“People tell you about that, but you don’t know it until you really feel it yourself,” Baun said. “But just providing is my ultimate gift to him and my family. And that’s always the goal, to sign a multiyear deal, right?

“You just want to make the most out of this short opportunity that we have in the league.”

Sixteen more regular-season games, at least 16 more opportunities for Baun to seize as an impact player in the Eagles defense.

The Eagles play in Week 2 against the Atlanta Falcons. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and EJ Smith as they dissect the hottest storylines surrounding the team on Gameday Central, live from Lincoln Financial Field.