Eagles Avoided Holdout Headache By Dealing Unhappy Haason Reddick

The former Eagles' edge rusher was never going to play on the final year of his deal he signed with the Eagles before the 2022 season.

Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Haason Reddick (7) stretches before the game against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium. / Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

PHILADELPHIA - While not popular at the time the Eagles seemed to have dodged a bullet by trading an unhappy Haason Reddick to the New York Jets for a 2026 conditional third-round draft pick.

Reddick, a proven pass-rushing commodity, was set to finish the final year of a three-year, $45 million deal he signed with the Eagles before the 2022 season.

A Temple product and South Jersey native Reddick finished fourth in the Defensive Player of the Year Voting after the 2022 season in which he notched 19.5 sacks over 20 games in the Eagles' run to Super Bowl LVII, one of the best individual seasons in franchise history.

The sequel wasn't up to that level bur Reddick still accumulated a team-high 11.0 sacks, his fourth consecutive season in double digits.

Reddick is now officially holding out of training camp with the Jets while waiting for an adjustment to the final year of the contract he signed with the Eagles. That comes after Reddick sat out of voluntary work for the Jets along with mandatory minicamp.

The presumption is that a Band-Aid had to be worked out for the 2024 season wherever Reddick would be playing, at the bare minimum converting non-guaranteed money to guaranteed cash and adding incentives that would allow him to far surpass his scheduled $14.5 million.

An NFL source told Eagles on SI in the spring that the Reddick camp wanted to get into the $25M average-annual-value range. That's now spiked to $25M to $28M, according to reporters in Florham Park.

The spin coming from the Jets, where former Eagles VP of Player Personnel Joe Douglas is the GM, is that New York did indeed offer the type of aforementioned Band Aid contract tweak before the trade and Reddick declined the offer.

The Jets' stance was that if Reddick wanted to be in the $25-plus range, they needed to see the fit first before a potential in-season extension.

Douglas went ahead and made the deal with his former boss Howie Roseman when Reddick said he was OK with the path. Whether it was a miscommunication or a 180 from the Reddick camp the Jets were of the belief that Reddick would show for minicamp and training camp.

Things are acrimonious now with Reddick set to be fined daily and the Jets unwilling to negotiate until he shows for training camp.

Ironically, the Eagles had essentially replaced Reddick by signing Bryce Huff, a former Jets edge rusher, in free agency.

The Eagles have their first training camp practice on Wednesday morning where Huff will lead a group of edge rushers that also includes Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham, Nolan Smith, and rookie third-round pick Jalyx Hunt.

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