How Haason Reddick’s persistent quest to become a top edge rusher spurred the Eagles’ Super Bowl run

Haason Reddick didn’t have time for pleasantries.

The Camden native and former Temple standout sat across from Matt Rhule and Phil Snow in March 2021 for a free agency meeting with familiar faces running the Carolina Panthers at the time. The tenor of that conversation still resonates with Rhule two years later.

Reddick’s career hung in the balance at the time. He could feel his NFL future slipping through his fingers. For the first time since he was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in 2017 and switched to inside linebacker, he had real control over his situation. So instead of reminiscing with his old head coach and defensive coordinator about their shared time at Temple, he pressed the only question that mattered that day.

How are you going to use me?

“He knew that he wanted to be in the right situation,” Rhule told The Inquirer. “Where he could rush the passer and be an edge player. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey I played for you in college and I like you.’ It was clearly about him saying, ‘This is the way that I can succeed at a higher level.’”

Since that meeting, Reddick’s career has taken a storybook turn. A one-year deal with Carolina for modest money led to a bigger contract with the Eagles, his hometown team, the following offseason. A dominant regular season followed and now a two-game playoff stretch better than any pass rusher in the NFL leads him back to Glendale, Ariz., where his career nearly fizzled out in the first place.

“They’ve got to put this in a movie,” Reddick said. “This is a script. I’m telling you, this is a script.”

Reddick stood in the locker room after the Eagles’ 31-7 win over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday with cigar smoke filling the air. His two sacks, forced fumble, and fumble recovery against the Niners cemented him as one of the league’s top edge rushers just two years after he had to insist upon his ability to stay at that position.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Haason Reddick overcomes snubs and knocks out Brock Purdy and the 49ers in the NFC championship

This postseason’s unfolding wasn’t something he’d dreamt as he walked into the room with Rhule and Snow. His mind was on more meager goals at the time.

“I was just trying to survive,” Reddick said. “I was trying to survive and make sure that the next year wasn’t my last year.”

Reddick has a personalized golf cart parked in his garage, but he can’t find many places to drive it in the Philadelphia area.

The cart was sent to him from Brian Burns and represents both a settled bet and the competitive nature that has driven Reddick his entire life. The two young edge rushers made the wager as Panthers teammates before the 2021 season: Whoever finished the year with fewer sacks had to buy the winner a golf cart.

Burns initially tried to pass off a miniature toy cart to Reddick after finishing with nine sacks to Reddick’s 11, but eventually settled up with Reddick before the 2022 season started.

“He came through with the golf cart,” Reddick said on Sunday. “Stand-up guy, man. Like a little brother to me.”

Before the wager with Burns, Reddick spent the 2020 season competing for snaps on the Cardinals as a full-time rusher for the first time since he was at Temple. Before that, he was competing for relevance as an inside linebacker trying to learn a new scheme.

He moved the goalposts for himself in college several times as well, coming in as a walk-on trying to use football as a way to eventually support his family, talked out of quitting with sage advice from his mother, and eventually leaving as a first-round prospect.

“He always wants to do the next thing,” said Rhule, who was fired by Carolina after Week 5 this season and hired as Nebraska’s coach. “He finds something that’s going to keep him on edge and keep him motivated and keep that chip on his shoulder. I think it’s beautiful. A lot of guys, they have success and they relax. Haason is finding the next thing that he wants to show people he can do.”

Reddick’s productive 2021 season with Carolina moved the needle enough for him to strengthen his market the following year, but still not enough for him to be among the top tier of edge rushers.

The Panthers were in a public chase for quarterback Deshaun Watson and cleared the decks, leaving Reddick to find a long-term deal elsewhere. The three-year, $45 million contract he signed with the Eagles puts him 17th in annual value at his position according to overthecap.com.

Once he signed, Reddick determined his next goal would be 15 sacks. Doing so would make him the first player in NFL history to have double-digit sacks in three consecutive years for three teams. It would also prove to himself that he belonged with the best rushers in the NFL.

“I believe 15 is what separates you,” Reddick said earlier this month. “For someone to get 15 sacks, you need a lot of things to go your way, but I feel like that’s what separates elite from good at this level.”

Reddick hit the milestone in Week 17 against the New Orleans Saints. His sights shifted toward defensive player of the year a few weeks later and he had a case: His 16 sacks by the regular season’s end were tied for second in the league behind 49ers edge rusher Nick Bosa. His five forced fumbles tied the highest mark in the NFL as well.

Reddick pointed to that production when discussing his omission from the Associated Press’ three finalists for defensive player of the year. When Bosa, the Dallas Cowboys’ Micah Parsons, and Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones were announced the week leading up to the 49ers game, Reddick vented his frustration on social media, tweeting: “This [bleep] needs to stop.”

After the win against the 49ers, Reddick made a point to literally get the last laugh.

“I went through the same type of stuff in college,” Reddick said. “I walked on and had to prove myself and prove that I deserved to be on the field. It was the same thing, people said it was a one-year thing. People didn’t want to take a shot on me. Went to Carolina on a prove-it deal and did it again.

“Came back home, [shoot], did it again,” Reddick added before letting out a dry, sarcastic laugh. “You feel me?”

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Before the start of the playoffs, Reddick and Kyzir White talked about the surreal feeling of playing a postseason game so close to home.

They also commiserated about the onslaught of local ticket requests that come out of the woodwork for such games.

“It’s everything we imagined and dreamed of growing up,” said White, who grew up in the Lehigh Valley. “How crazy is it, our first year back, we’re on the best team in the NFL with a chance to go to the Super Bowl?”

In the first two games of the Eagles’ playoff run, Reddick has certainly met the moment. He was disruptive on consecutive plays against the Giants, ending New York’s first series of the divisional round with a third-down half-sack and a solo sack on fourth down.

» READ MORE: Haason Reddick, native son, is living his dream, making his NFL playoff debut with his Eagles

Against the 49ers, Reddick had a strip-sack on the opening series, which knocked quarterback Brock Purdy out of the game until a Josh Johnson concussion necessitated Purdy’s return in the second half despite dealing with a torn UCL joint in his right elbow that limited him to throwing only short-yardage passes.

“You want to try to make the quarterback feel as uncomfortable as possible with everything,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said after the game. “Whether that’s the fans and them making it loud, whether that’s disguising the coverages, or whether that’s hitting him. You don’t ever want anybody to get dinged or get hurt, and I hope he’s OK, but [Reddick’s sack] definitely did change the game.”

Reddick said after the game he was still processing the emotions of helping his hometown Eagles make it to their fourth Super Bowl in franchise history and second in five years.

» READ MORE: ‘Dreams come true’: The Eagles’ Haason Reddick changed his career path with the help of family and hometown ties

Those close to him like Elijah Robinson, Reddick’s position coach at Temple and a fellow Camden native, said his actions in the past offseason help explain the feeling. Reddick set up community events and a visit to the Temple football facility quickly after signing with the Eagles in March.

“He gets a chance to do it again in front of his hometown,” said Robinson, now an assistant coach at Texas A&M. “Haason helped change a program at Temple. Now he gets a chance to do that again where it all started in college, in front of his hometown right over the bridge. It’s the perfect story set up for him.”

The final chapter of this season’s story will take Reddick back to Arizona. The Cardinals took him 13th overall — one pick before the Eagles’ selection — in the NFL draft held near the Art Museum and moved Reddick to inside linebacker because of his athletic profile.

Reddick struggled at the new spot, especially as the Cardinals churned through defensive systems because of coaching turnover. When Arizona declined his fifth-year option going into the 2020 season, Reddick feared his career was dwindling and approached the coaching staff about moving back to the edge.

After his 12½ sacks that year came the pivotal meeting with Rhule and Snow the following offseason.

“I felt like the future of my career was getting out of my hands,” Reddick said. “I decided to take a stand. Not in a rebellious way, but just to be able to solidify myself and my job in the NFL at the end of the day.

“That’s what I did and it’s been working out for me ever since.”