Eagles' Haason Reddick Questions Doubters: 'Do You Know Football?'
PHILADELPHIA – Haason Reddick has a question for you, his doubters and nonbelievers out there:
“Last year I showed I’m one of the most elite, one of the best at what I do. In the top five. When you talk about Haason Reddick, if I’m not in that category now I’ve got a question for you - do you know football?”
Apparently, some don’t.
The Philadelphia Eagles pass-rush standout went through his first practice on Tuesday morning after sitting out the first week of camp with groin soreness.
Reddick returned unhappy with NFL.com’s rankings of the league’s top 100 players, where he was ranked No. 48. Last year, he was fourth in the final voting for Defensive Player of the Year, though he got two first-place votes, to finish behind Nick Bosa, Micah Parsons, and Chris Jones.
“At this point now, man, I’m done talking like I have anything to prove to anybody," he said. "I’ve put enough work out there. I’ve put enough film out there, enough tape out there that my play now speaks for itself.
“People can make their opinions off of that. I don’t have to second-guess myself. I don’t feel like I have to show anybody anything. I’ve done that all. I’m done talking like I have anything to prove to anybody.”
Reddick had 16 sacks in the regular season then added 3.5 more in three playoff games, including the Super Bowl, for a total of 19.5 sacks last year. He has produced double-digit sacks in each of the last three years and has done it with three different teams.
Only Cleveland Browns star Myles Garrett (44) has more than Reddick’s 39.5 regular-season sacks the last three years, though San Francisco 49ers’ Nick Bosa would probably be ahead of him had he played more than two games in 2020.
“Is 20 (sacks) within reach?” Reddick said. “Listen, 19.5 last year. And like I said, be better than I was last year. And in order to be better, that’s the goal that I set for myself. Nobody placed that goal on me. That’s what I have for myself. Now it’s up to me to go out there and try to fulfill it.”
If he does it, he will be hard to ignore.
For now, though, he wonders: Where’s the love, nationally?
Reddick believes that his struggles for the first four years of his career, after being drafted 13th overall by the Arizona Cardinals in 2013, have him playing catch-up.
“Now I’m at a point where even though my production is crazy – last year I had a crazy productive year – the name is catching up with the work,” he said. “The first couple years kind of put me behind but I’m here, I’ve shown it already.”
Reddick came to Philadelphia on a discount last year as a free agent, a discount, anyway, as far as taking less than what a productive player at a premium position could command.
When he signed, he made no bones about wanting to return to play for the team he grew up rooting for just across the Walt Whitman Bridge in his hometown of Haddon Heights, N.J., and play in the same stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, that his college team, the Temple Owls, play in.
Bosa is holding out in San Francisco, looking for a new contract as he enters the final year of his rookie deal while Reddick, who will turn 29 shortly after the season begins, is in the second year of the three-year, $45 million deal he signed last year.
It's a contract that counts just $6.9M against the salary cap but rises to $20.8M in the final year and included $30M in guaranteed money and a $13.7M signing bonus. There is a guaranteed option in the second contract year worth $13.6M, but it also has him playing for a salary of $1.08M this season that jumps to $13.7 next year.
He was asked if he felt underpaid.
“You know, just keep coming out, keep working,” he said. “Those things have a way of sorting themselves out. I’m just going to come out, continue to work, and be a better version of Haason Reddick. Continue to be a great teammate. Go out here and work hard for the guys and let those things sort themselves out as they should.”
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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