Jalen Hurts, Dallas Goedert and the Philadelphia Eagles' offense will get much of the shine following their 24-22 season-opening victory over the Washington Commanders, but it was a dependable force on their defense who really showed out in Sunday's win. Linebacker Zack Baun had another stellar performance in the season-opener, logging a game-high 12 tackles, two passes defensed and a tackle for loss. As a result, Tom Brady named him as his LFG Player of the Game, saying that Baun was already in midseason form.
And Baun repaid the love to Brady. "Thank you very much, Tom. Keep calling my games," Baun said with excitement.
"Let's f—ing go!" Sunday marked Baun's second LFG Player of the Game honor, winning the award last season when he helped the Eagles beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 4. Philadelphia is also 9-3 in the 12 games that Brady has called since the start of the 2024 season, including its Super Bowl LIX victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. One of those nine victories also came against the Commanders in the 2024 NFC Championship Game.
But Washington has changed a good bit since that loss. The Commanders swapped offensive coordinators this offseason, with David Blough replacing Kliff Kingsbury. That change didn't bring the result the Commanders were hoping for, at least in Sunday's game.
The Eagles held the Commanders to 295 yards of offense, and quarterback Jayden Daniels had a sub-50% completion percentage for much of the day. Still, Baun acknowledged that facing a team with a new offensive coordinator in their first game presented a bit of a challenge. "With a new offensive coordinator they've got, you don't really know what to expect," Baun told Brady.
"They can go with this offense, or they have a background in this offense. So, you've got to prepare for it all. Luckily, it was the first game, so we had a lot of time to do that.
But we came out and showed effort, energy and got the dub." While questions have consistently surrounded the Eagles' offense over the last few seasons, their defense has been reliable, thanks to players like Baun. Philadelphia was fifth in scoring defense last season after finishing second in scoring defense a year prior. Baun credited the preparation from Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio for helping Philadelphia's defense open the year strong.
"Every year, it starts with the fundamentals — grinding, grinding, grinding," Baun told Brady. "How are we tackling? How are we helping each other in coverage?
How are we communicating? All of that, so, I thought it was pretty good today. Of course, there's always some stuff for improvement." Not every element of Baun's outing on Sunday was perfect, though.
In the second quarter, he hauled in a pass from Daniels that should've been an interception. But Baun wasn't able to get his feet down inbounds for the pick. Brady and Baun had a good laugh over the play after the game.
"We do catch work every day, working on the toe drag," Baun told Brady. "I think the ball was just too far. I had no shot at that one.
But I caught it."
