Eagles Linebacker Savors Return To His Former NFL Home

New Orleans is where this Eagles linebacker got his NFL start, though he said it was his fault why he never caught on with the Saints.
Feb 3, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Zack Baun (53) talks to the media during Super Bowl LIX Opening Night at Ceasars Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images
Feb 3, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Zack Baun (53) talks to the media during Super Bowl LIX Opening Night at Ceasars Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images
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NEW ORLEANS – Zack Baun was back, back where his NFL career began with the Saints. In New Orleans. A stone’s throw from the Caesars Superdome.

“It’s very interesting,” he said about his return, where his new team, the Eagles, will play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX on Sunday. “A lot of feelings. Even the smells have brought me back to certain periods of time. But it was cool to see some of the athletic trainers, the equipment people that were here. It's cool to be back.”

What sort of smells Baun meant, he didn’t know. It wasn’t the same smell he had when he signed a one-year, $3.5 million contract shortly after free agency began in March.

“When I got to Philly, I could feel the heartbreak and the uncomfortableness of what was going on,” he said during Eagles media availability on Tuesday. “What they had experienced last year, obviously I wasn't here to experience that myself. But immediately, I could tell this team was on a mission.”

The mission has led here, to his former NFL home of four years.

“It was more comforting to me (returning), knowing I played a lot of games on that field,” he said. “I've been in that stadium a lot of times. I'm not going to make being here in the Super Bowl as big as it is. Just kind of minimizing it in your mind.”

Zack Baun
Eagles linebacker Zack Baun watches a recent practice before leaving for Super Bowl LIX. / Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

The Saints could never figure him out. They had him on special teams for most of his four years there. He started a total of 14 games at linebacker. Imagine the Saints’ surprise when seeing what Baun this season, bursting onto the scene as a relative unknown who will learn on Thursday night if he wins the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year Award.

“I think when I was here, I didn't know what I was,” he said, referring to New Orleans. “I didn't know if I was an off-ball linebacker, on-ball backer. I just knew it didn't necessarily feel right, so I wasn't getting it right away. Time ran its course, and I just continued to work on my craft. Work on my craft to get better at all things.

Along came Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, and Baun has learned to get out of his way.

Burks is getting his chance in the playoffs after Nakobe Dean suffered a knee injury in the wildcard win over the Green Bay Packers. Baun’s chance arrived after he got to Philly, and he more than made the most of it, with the third-most tackles in the NFL (150), which was more than double his total for four years in New Orleans.

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Ed Kracz
ED KRACZ

Ed Kracz has been covering the Eagles full-time for over a decade and has written about Philadelphia sports since 1996. He wrote about the Phillies in the 2008 and 2009 World Series, the Flyers in their 2010 Stanely Cup playoff run to the finals, and was in Minnesota when the Eagles secured their first-ever Super Bowl win in 2017. Ed has received multiple writing awards as a sports journalist, including several top-five finishes in the Associated Press Sports Editors awards.