All-Pro LB Zack Baun on his breakout with Eagles: ‘They had a vision for me’

New Orleans -NFL Free Agency’s first enthusiastic time is usually reserved for $ 10 million headliners that empty the team’s wallet as the largest salary and the maximum off -season needs.

After a four -year unobtrusive year with the saints, the line backer Zack Bown signed a 1 -year contract with Eagles last March. But what he is noticeable now is when he signed.

“We signed him in the first five minutes of free agencies,” said Hawary Roseman, an Eagles general manager, said on Monday a week before his team plays a Super Bowl Lix chief. I did it. “He was a priority. He would come here because we wanted to make him feel like a priority.”

28 -year -old Baun was one of the most unlikely stars in this year’s Super Bowl, started with New Orleans, and played a championship in a field called home until this season. Every year with the saints, he snapped with a more special team than a defensive defense, a rotation pass rush, a sub -package rotating pass rush in four years.

He realizes that he is with Eagles, leading Filadelphia’s resurrected defense in a super bowl for the first time in three years. He had 150 tackles this season alone, forced five fumble, finished in 3.5 bags, and not only nodded the professional bowl, but also the first team’s All -professional honor.

“They had a vision for me,” said Burn. It is easy to shave his head and find it with a beard. “The opportunity, that’s all I wanted. Nobody told me that I was a starter. I wasn’t given. I had to work at my place, that’s it. I didn’t care if it was inside or outside.

The appearance of a new starter, such as a brown, is the reason that Eagles ranked first in NFL in all defense and the second place in scoring defense.

“I just saw a man, I liked how he moved, I liked his instinct, and he thought he could be ILB.”

Bown is a university edge rush, enough to put his fourth grader in 12.5 bags in Wisconsin and make three rounds with saints in 2020. However, the success is not translated at the NFL level, and agencies do not know where his future is, and in either of the fields in the field.

“It’s all fit, like many people,” said Oren Barks, a fellow line backer. “He’s perfect for the FANGIO system and makes him a playmaker. He was all over the way he handled this year, from a professional perspective. I was surprised. I knew he had the ability to do it at the highest level.

[Prepare for the epic Eagles-Chiefs matchup on FOX Sports’ Super Bowl LIX hub]

Currently, he is one of the five finalists of NFL Defense Player of the Year. This is mainly a rookie of five groups. )

“It’s really cool just to be referred to those people,” said Baun. “These are those who have been playing this league for a long time and have won the best defensive players in the past.”

Sunday may be the last game of the brown in the Eagles uniform. He has become one of the free agents in NFL, and is too expensive to stay in Philadelphia in every position. One remarkable season ends at the largest stage of Sunday night. If you are lucky, he will be one of the first free agents signed in March.

“Everyone wants to want it. It was Eagles for me,” he said. “Haweey was on me immediately, Nick [Sirianni] I had a plan for me from the beginning, which had a big meaning for me. “

GREG AUMAN is a NFL reporter of Fox Sports. He had been spending 10 years before Buccaniars for Tampo bay The times and athletic. You can follow him on Twitter @gregauman。

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