Jerome Baker

8 NFL seasons, 4 teams, 377 tackles, 27 sacks — the veteran LB role-player profile.

Six Miami seasons (2018-2023) gave Baker his peak: two seasons of 5+ sacks as a blitzing LB and four seasons of 50+ tackles. The post-Miami years (Seattle, Tennessee, Cleveland) have been bounce-around veteran depth — situational pass rush and special teams.

2020 was the breakout: 7 sacks + 7 TFLs as a coverage LB — top-5 blitz LB year.

As a third-year LB, Baker had the season Miami drafted him hoping for: 7 sacks, 11 QB hits, 7 TFLs, 64 tackles. That's a blitzing-from-depth profile usually associated with edges, not off-ball LBs.

He followed it with 5.5 sacks in 2021 — making him one of just a handful of LBs with back-to-back 5+ sack seasons in 2020-21. The career arc since then has been about reuse of that skillset in smaller doses.

2024: split between Seattle and Tennessee — 10 games on two coasts.

A mid-season trade dropped Baker from Seattle to Tennessee in 2024 — 5 games for each team, identical sack output (1 apiece), identical PD count. The split underscored how teams were using him: pass-rush and coverage situational, not three-down.

The 2025 jump to Cleveland turned into another low-volume year: 10 tackles in his sample, mostly as a backup and special-teamer.

Top-30 active LB in career sacks (27.0) — even with 5 sub-30-tackle seasons mixed in.

Among LBs active in 2025, 27 career sacks puts Baker in the top tier — most off-ball linebackers never crack 20. The 2020-22 stretch (17.5 sacks across three years) is what carries the resume.

He's also got 37 career TFLs and 377 tackles — the bulk-stat side of a long career. Eight seasons in the league is itself the win: most third-round LBs are out by year five.