Haason Reddick seemed to know his time with the Eagles was over after the Tampa Bay loss

The buses were spitting exhaust from the parking lot into the tunnel at Raymond James Stadium, where Haason Reddick and the Eagles had just been humiliated by the Buccaneers in a wild-card playoff loss.

Reddick hadn’t sniffed a sack in a month, and he would be a salary-cap burden if he didn’t renegotiate his deal, and he was entering the final year of the deal anyway, and he’d been embarrassingly underpaid for the first two seasons, so there was no way he was playing another snap for his hometown team under the current terms ... right?

My question was blunt:

If you don’t get an extension and raise, are you going to hold out?

His answer:

“I’m being honest with you: I hadn’t given it much thought,” he said.

His expression told a far different story. So did his words, as he continued to speak. He shrugged. He spooned some food onto his to-go container, backpack on his shoulder, sadness on his face. It had been a dream to play for the Eagles, this Camden kid who walked on at Temple, but all dreams end.

“That’s the way the sport is. That’s the way the sport goes,” Reddick said. “This is my third team. In my seven years, I’ve seen so many faces come and so many faces go. It sounds so cliché, but I can’t control that decision.”

He can, of course. Since that messy Monday night in the middle of January, Reddick and his agents have tried to negotiate an extension, but his asking price has been too high. As such, Eagles GM Howie Roseman and Reddick’s camp have been trying to find a trade partner willing to both surrender an asset and pay Reddick his worth, but that process has been so onerous that the sides agreed to delay a $1 million roster bonus due March 15 until April 1.

Last week, the Eagles gave free-agent edge rusher Bryce Huff a $51 million deal, the clearest harbinger yet of Reddick’s inevitable departure.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Howie Roseman steals Saquon Barkley, Bryce Huff from New York

Reddick clearly saw this coming. Earlier that Monday night he’d said all the right things to the assembled media in the locker room, stuff about getting the team back to the level that saw it go 26-7 in his first 33 games, including playoffs, in which he had 30½ sacks. But as he prepared to leave the stadium, Reddick’s tone was far less optimistic about his future in Philly.

“I appreciate Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie. Being here the last two years, this has been a blessing for me,” Reddick said. “It’s been wonderful the last two years. We’ll get with Howie. I know those guys are going to reevaluate everything. What does that look like? I don’t know.”

For two years, what it looked like was better than anyone imagined.

Roseman stole Reddick from the rest of the league, at three years and $45 million. Only three players had more than Reddick’s 27 sacks in 2022 and 2023: Myles Garrett, Nick Bosa, and Micah Parsons. To his credit, Roseman saw it coming, considering only three players had more than Reddick’s 50½ sacks from 2020-23: T.J. Watt, Garrett, and Trey Hendrickson. The Cardinals, who drafted Reddick in the first round in 2017, didn’t believe in Reddick, who they’d tried to convert from edge rusher to inside linebacker. He responded with a breakout fourth year, when he had 12½ sacks. The league gave little notice; the best he could do as a free agent in 2021 was a one-year, $8 million deal with Carolina, where he collected 11 more sacks. The NFL still wasn’t sold, so Roseman swooped in.

Reddick had 16 sacks in 2022, the highest total on a defense that finished with 70, a team record and the third-highest total in NFL history. He added 3½ more on the way to the Super Bowl.

He managed just 11 sacks in 2023 and none after Game 13. Not coincidentally, Nick Sirianni demoted defensive coordinator Sean Desai in favor of Matt Patricia, who inexplicably began dropping Reddick into coverage, even after Reddick had spent three years in Arizona proving he couldn’t develop that skill.

» READ MORE: Matt Patricia made Haason Reddick disappear. Nick Sirianni and Howie Roseman let it happen. What a waste.

Neither Desai nor Patricia will return for 2024.

Will Reddick? Probably not.

His salary-cap hit is just under $22 million. He reportedly wants $25 million a year for as many as three years, but the Birds aren’t willing to go higher than $20 million or so per year. The Eagles still have to extend DeVonta Smith, but even after extending Landon Dickerson and signing Huff, Saquon Barkley, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and Devin White, the Birds retain $34 million in cap space this season.

Me? I’d re-sign Reddick, and I’d front-load the deal. Reddick turns 30 in September, but at the end of the 2022 season he adopted a new diet and recovery regimen that has kept him fresh.

He’s also a low-maintenance, high-character veteran in a fractured locker room losing its two most significant leaders, retirees Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ free-agent additions on defense won’t matter if Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean can’t play

Plus, unlike some Philly natives (see Kyle “You never want to play at home” Lowry), Reddick relishes playing in his backyard.

“I knew coming home was going to be great,” Reddick said. “My favorite player was Duce Staley, you know what I’m saying? It’s been a lot of joy for me.”

Joy, and pain.

“It’s been a disappointing season, but it’s been a dream come true for me,” Reddick said, closing the lid on his food container. “I believe God guided my journey to bring me home. I’ve heard people call me a bust. I had a team not pick up my fifth-year option even though I played good that year. He guided the journey the way it needed to be to get me home. And everything happens for a reason.”

And with that, he was gone.