With two games left in the regular season, the Haason Reddick experiment in Tampa Bay hasn’t exactly panned out the way the Buccaneers hoped when they signed him to a one-year, $14 million deal. The veteran edge rusher, once one of the league’s most feared sack artists, has managed just 2.5 sacks this season-a far cry from the double-digit production he delivered in each of the last four years.
Injuries have played a significant role in that drop-off. An ankle and knee issue slowed him early, and while he’s been on the field, the burst and finishing ability that defined his prime years just hasn’t been there consistently. Bucs outside linebackers coach Larry Foote acknowledged as much, saying he expected more from Reddick in the sack column.
“Coming into the season, I thought his sack numbers would be higher,” Foote said. “He did a lot of good things for us early on; the injury set him back.”
Reddick has still found ways to impact plays-he’s posted 33 quarterback pressures, according to Pro Football Focus, which ranks him 50th among 112 edge rushers. He’s also logged three hurries and two quarterback knockdowns. But pressures without sacks only go so far, especially when a team is desperate for someone to consistently close the deal.
The lack of consistent heat off the edge has been a season-long issue for Tampa Bay. Rookie Yaya Diaby leads the team with six sacks, and while that’s a promising number for a player still developing his skill set, it also underscores the broader problem: the Bucs haven’t had a true game-wrecker off the edge since the days of Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul in their primes.
The franchise’s track record of drafting and developing edge rushers has been, frankly, underwhelming. Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, a former first-round pick, has yet to top five sacks in any season.
Chris Braswell, taken in the second round out of Alabama in 2024, notched his first sack of the season just last week against Carolina. He now has 2.5 sacks in two seasons.
Even going back to 2016, the Bucs haven’t had much better luck-Noah Spence flashed with 5.5 sacks as a rookie but totaled just two more over the next three years.
Perhaps the most productive homegrown edge rusher in recent memory is Anthony Nelson. He’s not a star, but his 21.5 sacks over seven seasons as a rotational pass rusher represent the most consistent output the Bucs have gotten from a drafted player at the position.
It’s a reminder that drafting edge rushers is one of the biggest gambles in football. The Falcons, for example, went all-in during the 2025 draft, taking Jalon Walker at No. 15 and then trading up to grab James Pearce Jr. at No.
- That move cost them a second-round pick in 2025, a seventh-rounder, and a 2026 first-rounder.
So far, it’s paying off-Pearce leads all rookies with 8.5 sacks, while Walker is second with 2.5. But those are the exceptions, not the rule.
As Foote put it, learning to rush the passer at the NFL level takes time. “It takes years, you have to have instincts… a natural feel,” he said.
“A savviness. Using Yaya (Diaby) for example, and I’m starting to point out to him, there’s a skill-set, just a knack to getting the quarterback down.”
Foote would know. He was on the Cardinals’ coaching staff when Reddick was drafted in 2017.
It wasn’t until Reddick’s fourth season that he broke out with 12.5 sacks, and from there, he became a consistent force-until this year. After a trade from the Eagles to the Jets and a subsequent holdout, Reddick landed in Tampa hoping to reclaim his status as one of the league’s premier pass rushers.
At 31, that comeback hasn’t materialized.
“He’s gotten back there,” head coach Todd Bowles said. “He’s just got to close the deal once he gets back there.”
Since GM Jason Licht took over in 2014, his best pass rushers have mostly come from outside the building. Barrett was a bargain-bin free agent pickup from Denver in 2019 who exploded for a league-leading 19.5 sacks.
He hit double digits again in 2021 and was a key cog in the Bucs’ Super Bowl LV run. Pierre-Paul, acquired via trade from the Giants, notched 18 sacks in his first two seasons in Tampa and brought a veteran edge presence the team sorely needed.
Both players have since aged out of their prime roles. Barrett returned for a game last season, and Pierre-Paul was signed to the practice squad on December 9.
He played a dozen snaps last Sunday but didn’t record a stat. Bowles said Pierre-Paul is still getting up to speed with the system and working his way back into football shape.
“There’s different things that he’s got to grasp that will increase his workload,” Bowles said. “As he gets more comfortable with that, he’ll get more playing time.”
But with just two games left, the clock is ticking-for Reddick, for Pierre-Paul, and for a Bucs defense still searching for someone who can consistently get home.