Zack
Baun.
Zack
Baun.
Wisconsin· 6'2"· 238 lb· 4.65s 40
"A former high school quarterback who lost a season to a foot injury, then produced 19.5 tackles for loss and 12.5 sacks as a senior and became Wisconsin's first consensus All-American linebacker."Pre-draft read
Baun is a stand-up outside linebacker who plays with relentless pace and a converted athlete's instincts. He explodes off the snap and chases plays from the back side. His pro day shuttle time tells the story better than a forty: quick, bendy and coordinated in tight space rather than fast in a straight line.
As a rusher he wins with timing and a low first step rather than length or power, which is why his sack production came in a burst and against tackles who set late. Dropping into coverage he looks natural, a residue of playing quarterback in high school. The frame is light for an edge player, and that tension, rusher or off-ball linebacker, defined his evaluation.
Multiple front that treats him as a movable chess piece, with a coordinator willing to play him off the ball on early downs and rush him on passing downs.
Year 1 sub-package rusher and special teamer while he adds weight and learns off-ball responsibilities, with a ceiling as an every-down All-Pro linebacker.
A static defense that asks him to set the edge against tight ends on first down and nothing else, which is exactly how his first four professional seasons were wasted.
The whole investment is in a coaching staff that decides what he is; the traits work in more than one job, but only if someone picks one.
Zack Baun 2019 Wisconsin Highlights
Full senior-season cutup of the All-American year that produced 12.5 sacks.
Wisconsin LB Zack Baun Highlights
Draft-cycle reel with the pass-rush reps and coverage drops that framed the hybrid projection.
Zack Baun, Wisconsin LB #56 vs. USF 2019
Single-game all-22 study, useful for judging his pace and diagnosis snap to snap.
Baun arrived at Wisconsin as a high school quarterback and left as a consensus All-American linebacker, which is the shortest possible summary of a long development. He redshirted in 2015, played 12 games as a backup in 2016 with 15 tackles, then lost the entire 2017 season to a foot injury suffered in fall camp. He returned in 2018 with 63 tackles, eight tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks, showing flashes late in the year without anyone calling him a prospect.
The 2019 season changed everything. As a team captain he posted 76 tackles, 19.5 tackles for loss and 12.5 sacks, ranking second in the Big Ten in both and second among Power Five linebackers, and he added ten quarterback hurries. He was a Butkus Award finalist and became the first linebacker in Wisconsin history named a consensus first-team All-American.
The question teams wrestled with was position. At 6-2 and 238 pounds he was too light to set an NFL edge every down and had never played off the ball full time, so he projected as a hybrid: a sub-package rusher who might learn to be an inside linebacker. Character and football intelligence graded out high. New Orleans, a defense that liked movable pieces, took him at 74 believing they could find him snaps.
- 01
Motor and pursuit
Plays every snap to the whistle and chases from the back side, which is how a light edge player produced 20 tackles for loss in a season.
- 02
Get-off and bend
Explodes off the snap and can flatten around a tackle's edge, the trait that turned him into a 12.5-sack rusher as a senior.
- 03
Short-area quickness
A 4.08 twenty-yard shuttle at his pro day confirms elite change of direction, which is what lets him win in the phone booth.
- 04
Football intelligence
A former quarterback and a team captain who reads plays quickly and diagnoses concepts before they develop in front of him.
- 05
Coverage comfort
Looks natural dropping into space for an edge player, the single trait that makes a hybrid projection realistic rather than wishful.
- 01
Play strength
At 238 pounds he gets moved by tight ends and tackles at the point of attack and cannot set a hard NFL edge on early downs.
- 02
One-year sample
The production came entirely in his final season, with just 2.5 sacks and eight tackles for loss in every other year combined.
- 03
Positional homelessness
Too light to be a full-time edge and never played off the ball, so the team drafting him has to invent his job.
- 04
Injury history
Missed all of 2017 with a foot injury, a real flag for a player whose value depends on burst and lower-body explosion.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.65sp50
- Vertical
- 32.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 115inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.00sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.31sp50
- Bench
- 24repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Wisconsin | 12 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | Wisconsin | 13 | 63 | 2.5 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 2019 | Wisconsin | 14 | 76 | 12.5 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Career | — | 39 | 154 | 15 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
Season lines include bowl games and sum exactly to the career totals of 154 tackles, 32 tackles for loss and 15 sacks in 39 games. He redshirted in 2015 and missed all of 2017 with a foot injury, so those years carry no line at all. Wisconsin's regular-season-only figures list 19.5 tackles for loss in 2019.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Hybrid defender who carves out a long career as a versatile sub-package piece in the right system.
The ceiling version, where an undersized, instinctive linebacker becomes an All-Pro because a defense lets him run and read.
Light edge player who settles into a rotational role and special teams without ever finding a full-time job.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
New Orleans never solved him, and then someone else did in one summer. Baun spent four seasons with the Saints as a situational rusher and special teams contributor, never starting more than six games in a year, never topping 30 tackles, and playing more special teams snaps than defensive snaps in every season. His best Saints year was 2023, with 30 tackles, two sacks and an interception in 17 games. When he reached free agency, New Orleans let him walk without a fight and signed a different linebacker to replace him.
Philadelphia gave him a one-year deal in 2024 and did the obvious thing nobody had tried, moving him off the ball full time in Vic Fangio's defense. He won the job in camp and produced one of the great linebacker seasons of the decade: 151 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, five forced fumbles, 3.5 sacks and an interception, first-team All-Pro, a Pro Bowl, and fifth in Defensive Player of the Year voting during a Super Bowl LIX title run that included his interception of Patrick Mahomes. He added 123 tackles and a second Pro Bowl in 2025. In hindsight the evaluation had the player right and the ceiling wrong: everyone saw the motor, the instincts and the position problem, and the answer was simply a coordinator willing to commit.
Data note: from Cleveland