It was a fun dream while it lasted!
For a few weeks there, it felt like the 49ers were going to be a sneaky good fit for Zack Baun this offseason. Baun's been one of the best stories in football this year, going from being just a guy in New Orleans to becoming a Defensive Player of the Year finalist in his one year with the Eagles.
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After never starting more than six games in New Orleans, Baun came to Philly and started all 16 games he appeared in, setting career-bests in sacks (3.5), solo tackles (93), tackles for loss (11), and QB hits (5). It was about as perfectly timed as contract seasons get, which is nice for Baun but, unfortunately, extremely not nice for the 49ers. Especially with the way Baun dominated in the Eagles' NFC Championship win over the Commanders on Sunday, it feels like the 49ers' chances of bringing him in have officially gone out the window.
The Zack-Baun-in San-Francisco dream is probably dead after the NFC Championship
Given how the rest of his season has gone, it probably shouldn't be all that surprising that Baun had one of his best games of the year in, so far, his biggest game of the year. Against the Commanders, Baun with a game-high 12 tackles – eight of them solo tackles – a tackle for a loss, and a fumble recovery.
And while it's not like one game earned him a massive contract, playing like that in nationally televised championship games certainly never hurts. What it did do, however, is price the 49ers out of the impending Baun sweepstakes this offseason. According to Over The Cap, the 49ers have the 10th-most cap space in the NFL this offseason, but given Fred Warner's contract, linebacker probably isn't a spot where GM John Lynch is going to try and make a splash.
Warner's cap hit next season is set to be roughly $30 million, far-and-away the highest cap hit of anyone currently on the roster. If Baun hadn't had legitimately one of the best seasons of any defensive player in football, he'd make a ton of sense in San Francisco. But Vic Fangio did what Vic Fangio always does – it's just not fun anymore now that it's happening in Philadelphia. If the Baun dream is officially dead, at least it's because the Niners have Fred Warner.