The Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t have a single player on defense in 2025 who could turn a game on its head. They didn’t have a firestarter.
That’s unfortunate, because the defense featured 3 former NFL All-Pro players in now-retired linebacker Lavonte David, safety Antoine Winfield Jr., and, in what’s now amounting to a 1-year cameo, edge rusher Haason Reddick.
No one was more disappointing or let the defense down more than Reddick, who the Buccaneers signed to a 1-year, $14 million contract in the hopes that he still had the juice left that also made him a 2-time Pro Bowler.
Now, some 2 months away from the start of training camp, Reddick is still looking for a job and still on ESPN’s list of the Top 20 available free agents at No. 16.
“Reddick had 2.5 sacks and 23 pressures for the Bucs last season,” ESPN’s Matt Bowen wrote. “With 61.5 career sacks, he could draw interest from teams that like to scheme their pass rushers out of loaded fronts.”
Reddick, 31, has $80.5 million in career earnings headed into 2026.
Bucs Praised for ‘Gamble’ on Reddick
The Buccaneers were in desperate need of an edge rusher in 2025 and turned to Reddick after he flamed out with the New York Jets in 2024.
ESPN singled out general manager Jason Licht’s “gamble” on Reddick as one of the NFL’s best moves of the 2025 offseason.
“Tampa Bay also took what I thought was a worthwhile gamble on Reddick at one year, $14 million,” ESPN’s Seth Walder wrote in July 2025. “Reddick is coming off a lost season that featured a long contract standoff, 10 games played and only one sack. But Reddick has been an elite pass rusher (he posted double-digit sacks every year from 2020 to 2023) and could help Todd Bowles’ defense if he bounces back.”
Reddick’s Struggles Were His Own Fault
The Jets traded a 2026 3rd-round pick to the Eagles for Reddick in March 2024 and thought they were getting a playmaker for a team ready to make a playoff push.
Reddick thought he was getting a new contract. He held out of minicamp and training camp and requested a trade in August. Then, he missed the first 6 games of the regular season, incurring massive fines until he returned to the Jets for the final 10 games. He had his worst year since 2019 with just 1.0 sack as the Jets went 5-12 overall.
It was a bad look for Reddick, who was due to make almost $16 million in 2024 in the final season of the 3-year, $45 million contract he signed with the Eagles in March 2022.
The Eagles now seem to be the big winners in the trade after using the pick from the trade on 6-foot-9, 346-pound Miami offensive tackle Markel Bell, who is already being viewed as a possible replacement for future Hall of Famer Lane Johnson.
Johnson, 36, is a 5-time NFL All-Pro and 2-time Super Bowl champion headed into his 14th season.
“The Eagles didn’t just shed a contract situation that had grown complicated,” USA Today’s Geoffrey A. Knox wrote. “They converted it into a potential long-term asset at a position of need. With Lane Johnson nearing the latter stages of his career, investing in the offensive line wasn’t just smart. It was necessary.”
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