NFL teams looking for help off the edge may want to slow down before they get too excited about Haason Reddick.
With the season less than a month away, the veteran pass rusher is drawing interest from teams trying to patch holes on defense, according to NFL insider Jordan Schultz. That buzz is real enough. But if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are any guide, the warning label should be louder.
The Bucs signed Reddick to a one-year, $14 million deal last offseason hoping they were getting the same player who had been one of the league’s most dangerous pass rushers. For years, that version of Reddick showed up every season. From 2020 through 2023, he finished with at least 11 sacks each year.
That wasn’t the player Tampa Bay got.
Reddick managed only 2.5 sacks in his lone season with the Buccaneers, a major letdown for a team trying to wake up a pass rush that had been quiet for too long. And the fit apparently never clicked beyond the field, either. After Tampa Bay’s 29-28 collapse against the Atlanta Falcons, team captains Vita Vea and Antoine Winfield Jr. were seen chewing Reddick out on the way into the tunnel for reasons that remain unknown.
The move ended up as one of Jason Licht’s most costly free-agent misses in recent memory. Still, the front office took the swing for a reason: Reddick’s résumé was built on elite production, and the Buccaneers had spent years searching for consistent pressure off the edge. Tampa Bay has since moved on, letting Reddick leave in free agency before signing Al-Quadin Muhammad after an 11-sack season with the Detroit Lions and drafting Rueben Bain Jr.
But the broader lesson may be the same for any team thinking about bringing Reddick in now. He was once among the NFL’s premier pass rushers.
That part of his career is real. What Tampa Bay saw last season was something different - a player who no longer looked like a starting-caliber force and barely seemed effective enough to be more than a rotational piece.
Even the comparison to Joe Tryon-Soyinka stings. The Buccaneers, in hindsight, could have gotten better production out of the now-retired edge rusher for far less money.
There is already at least one obvious landing spot being floated. In terms of Jalon Walker replacements for the #Falcons, one name that’s still available in free agency stands out: Haason Reddick.
Reddick spent 2024 with the New York Jets, where he overlapped with then-DC and later interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich.
Something worth monitoring.
For Bucs fans, the hope is simple: if Reddick lands somewhere else, let it be Atlanta. The Falcons are trying to solve a pass-rush problem after Jalon Walker’s season-ending injury and James Pearce Jr.'s eight-game suspension.
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