"I've made so much progress," Baun said. "I'm excited to see where I go."
Baun once again switched positions this offseason, moving from strongside linebacker to the weakside, a change that will require him to be stronger in coverage. He trained for a few months back home in Wisconsin but has been working in New Orleans since April on his technique.
Saints defensive coordinator
Dennis Allen elaborated on Baun and the process of working him into the weakside position.
"Certainly there were some things that he was able to do last year that gave us confidence he was ready to take the next step," Allen said. "Zack really got hurt last year with the hamstring in training camp and we all knew there was going to be a development (curve) from him in terms of being an off-the-ball linebacker and last year we kind of played him at Sam and Mike off the ball. Well, he lost a week or 10 days of opportunities in terms of reps with an injury last year. That development was slowed and once you get into the regular season it's hard to find all those reps to continue develop guys. Where you saw him have success was as an off-the-ball linebacker at Sam, what he had done in college. But the things that we ask the middle linebacker to do in terms of responsibility and the things we ask the Sam linebacker to do in terms of responsibility are very similar."