Career Of Former Eagles Standout Takes Another Twist

OTAs are strictly voluntary. A player can choose not to be there, and that’s what Haason Reddick did.

The former Eagles pass rusher continues to make bad decision after bad decision. Or he keeps getting bad advice upon bad advice. Either way, the Temple product by way of Camden, N.J., skipped his new team’s first OTA (organized team activity) on Tuesday.

Again, they are optional, and missing one voluntary practice in May isn’t going to make or break the Bucs come time to make a playoff push.

Still, you look at Reddick’s recent history, and it’s head-scratching that he would miss an opportunity to make a statement that he is all in with his new team. A new team, incidentally, that gave him a one-year contract for $14 million, with $12M guaranteed, even after coming off a debacle with the New York Jets.

The Eagles traded him to the Jets when Joe Douglas was still the general manager, with the expectation that he would play under the terms of the one-year contract he had remaining before Howie Roseman sent him packing until they could renegotiate another deal.

Except Reddick played hardball, and so did Douglas and the Jets. It was one of many missteps by Douglas that led to his firing. Roseman brought Douglas back to Philly in a senior scouting role.

Reddick sat out the Jets’ first seven games trying to get more money. He finally agreed to restructure the contract in return for the Jets waiving the $12 million in fines he accrued by sitting out. He played 10 games with two starts and his stats were miniscule – two sacks and three quarterback hits.

That snapped his streak of double-digit sack seasons that had reached four straight years. His breakout season came in his first year with the Eagles when he recorded 19.5 sacks – 16 in the regular season and 3.5 in a playoff run that made it to the Super Bowl. He was second-team Associated Press All-American and fourth in the balloting for the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year.

He followed that up with 11 sacks, but the Eagles imploded after a 10-1 start, losing six of their final seven games, including to the Bucs in the Wildcard round of the playoffs.

Sources said that Reddick, who turns 31 in September, began freelancing late in the year to try to keep his sack-streak alive, and that did not sit well with some of his teammates. After collecting 11, he did not record another sack over the final four games or in the one playoff game.

Roseman decided to trade him, finagling a third-round draft pick out of the Jets in the 2026 draft. It would have been a second-rounder if Reddick had reached various incentives, but sitting out for seven games and all of preseason made those incentives difficult to reach.

Since that 2022 breakout year, it’s been nothing but frustration for Reddick, the Jets, and now maybe the Bucs, who the Eagles will play in Week 4. Maybe Reddick will even play in that game, too.