Timing is everything, and the timing for this season means safety Budda Baker won't get any work with the veterans of this roster until training camp. Baker, the second-round safety, took part in this weekend's rookie minicamp (even coming up with a pick on Friday). But he had to leave Sunday, part of a long-time NFL rule that says a rookie cannot participate (other than the rookie minicamp) until his college's spring class has graduated -- whether or not the player has remained in school.

The point of the rule is to make sure a player doesn't feel he has to leave school to get to his NFL team's workouts when he is trying to finish out the semester. Most players have already dropped out to focus on the NFL anyway, but some still are going to class.

Washington, like a handful of schools (UCLA, Oregon, Stanford and Oregon State among them), is on a quarters system. Graduation for Washington for the current quarter doesn't come until June 9. It means Baker cannot take part in the offseason work until June 10. Unfortunately for Baker, the Cardinals finish up on-field work with their mandatory (except for Baker) minicamp June 6-8.

There is a couple of weeks of rookie work after that, so Baker's return does mean something. Baker can talk to coaches on the phone or FaceTime in the meantime (as well as teammates; I'd guess at some point he'll touch base with Tyrann Mathieu.) How he fits with Mathieu and Patrick Peterson and the rest of the secondary will have to wait until mid-July.