TEMPE, Ariz. -- There's a certain niceness that comes across when Arizona Cardinals safety Budda Baker talks. It's a down-home gentleness. He's soft-spoken, quick with a smile, respectful, laid back, almost quiet.

Or as cornerback Patrick Peterson put it, Baker is "very, very chill."

At least that's how he is off the football field. But not on it.

"He definitely flips a switch, there's no doubt," Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury said. "If you're around him during the day and just interacting with him, he is just what you all see: He's a polite, well-spoken, good human being. But when he turns on that field, he flips that savage switch and he is as fearless as any player I've been around.

"He's full speed every single snap whether it's practice or the games."

Cardinals defensive coordinator Vance Joseph couldn't help but laugh when asked about the dichotomy of Baker's disposition on and off the field.

"Well, his personality, he's pretty laid back," Joseph said. "He's a fun-loving guy but he also has a switch."

Baker flipped a switch on his season during the Cardinals' Monday night game against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 6. About midway through the second quarter, Baker blitzed out of the inside linebacker spot to lay a hit on Cowboys quarterback Andy Dalton for a sack that made Dalton's head snap back. Before that play, Baker had been relatively quiet.

Baker, who at $14.75 million per season is the NFL's highest-paid safety, has been on a tear ever since. Baker snagged his first career interception against the Cowboys and his second against the Seattle Seahawks the following Sunday (the one on which DK Metcalf ran him down to prevent a score). Both interceptions came in nationally televised games and contributed to Baker earning NFC Defensive Player of the Month.

"Honestly, for me, I'm not really big into that type of stuff," Baker said. "It's a blessing to have a bunch of followers and people that look up to you. But, for me, I'm just continuing to be myself, continuing to lead by example, whether it's on the field or off the field. And that's just what I do."

Kingsbury said Baker isn't a "beat your chest, rah-rah type of guy." Instead, he has a businesslike approach at work. Oh, and Baker hits. Hard. It's one part of Baker's game that has especially caught Joseph's eye: a complete disregard for his body.

"To watch him throw his body around with his size, it's impressive because the way he hits people," Joseph said. "The way he runs through contact, I should say, is very rare. It's not natural to run full speed through contact, especially people who are larger than you.

"It's a natural trait that he has that most guys don't. Even great players don't have that trait to run full speed through darkness and you have no idea what the outcome's going to be when it comes to your body and being safe, but he knows, he doesn't care. I mean, he runs full speed to contact and that's rare to see him do it over and over again. It's fun to watch but it's definitely rare."

Baker -- who is 5-foot-10 and 195 pounds -- has spent the majority of his four NFL seasons, all with Arizona, playing in or around the box. He's been a ball hawk, able to get his nose into plays, regardless of where they are or who's making them.

"It's great to see him flying around, a guy of his stature just flying around, making the plays that he makes," linebacker Haason Reddick said.

"He's almost like the Aaron Donald of defensive backs," Peterson said. "People always talk about how small Aaron Donald is and how he's able to get the leverage and how he's so strong. It's the low man wins. ... The leverage that [Baker] plays with, nine times out of 10, the low guy's gonna win the battle and, nine times out of 10, he's gonna be the smallest and the lowest guy."

When defensive backs coach Marcus Robertson was hired by Kingsbury in early 2019, he set out to turn Baker into an "Earl Thomas type of player." One of the first things Robertson told Baker was he was moving him exclusively to free safety, although the Cardinals use their safeties in a variety of ways.

Almost a season and a half later, Robertson, who played 12 years in the NFL as a defensive back, said Baker's transition to being the type of safety he envisioned is still in progress. One part of Robertson's plan for Baker, however, has already started to flesh itself out.

"I see Budda as a five-, six-interception guy per season," Robertson said. "And I don't say it jokingly. That's what I see."

Robertson couldn't envision what it would've been like waiting until his fourth season to get his first career interception, but added, "It's not too late."

Baker has begun to get his interceptions despite still having tracking issues, Robertson said, an area they work on daily. To fix that, Robertson thinks Baker needs to change his attacking and aggressive mindset slightly so he can better judge if he should make the big hit or make a play on the ball.

"What he has down is he's been taught [to play like a] torpedo," Robertson said. "So, he sees a target, he hits a target. I'm just trying to get him to when you're in great position, it's OK to take a peek [at the ball] because it's not going to throw you off line, and that's when he's gonna make his plays."

Baker has played the 11th-most defensive snaps in the NFL since entering the Cardinals' starting lineup full time in 2018 and has the second-most individual tackles during that span, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

And less than three weeks before the season started, Baker was given a four-year extension that made him the highest-paid safety in the NFL.

All he's done since is prove his worth.

He leads the league in solo tackles with 48 and has become the heart and soul of a revamped defense for Arizona (5-2).

And there's a lot of soul inside Baker, who listens to R&B pregame and on the way to the stadium, choosing something new each week. Baker is more into new-school R&B, trying to find artists who haven't hit the mainstream yet, but one of his favorites is Brent Faiyaz.

Once he takes the field for warm-ups, though, Baker's taste in music changes. He puts on something more "high tempo" like rap and hip-hop.

Who Baker is today is who he's always been. In high school, he was a self-proclaimed "jokester" who was "messing around."

"Always been like the cool, low-tempered guy," Baker said, "but then on the football field, a totally different thing."

Cardinals cornerback Byron Murphy, who played with Baker at the University of Washington for one season in 2016, saw it then and still sees it now.

"On the field and everything just changes," Murphy said. "He turns into that dog that everyone knows he is. Once he crosses those lines it's a whole different Budda."