The Jets continued their all in approach for 2024 adding Eagles Pro Bowl EDGE Haason Reddick to their roster via trade. Per ESPN’s Rich Cimini the cost will be a 2026 3rd round draft pick that could jump to a 2nd round pick if Reddick has 67.5% playtime and 10 sacks, numbers that Reddick has hit in each of the last four seasons.
Reddick is in the final year of a three year contract that he signed with the Eagles as a free agent in 2022. It was thought that he was unhappy with his contract and was looking for an extension. The Eagles had given him permission to seek a trade and modified his contract to hold off on paying a $1 million a roster bonus until April 1, but there was limited interest during the early stages of free agency. The Eagles signed Bryce Huff, formerly of the Jets, in free agency as a replacement for Reddick.
According to multiple outlets the Eagles will pay Reddick’s roster bonus prior to officially executing the trade with the Jets. That will leave the Eagles with $21.515 million in dead money from Reddick’s contract, which is essentially the same cost on the salary cap as if he were still on the team. They do, however, save themselves $14.5 million in salary for the year.
The Jets will take on a $15 million salary cap charge for Reddick, but my assumption would be that the team would immediately restructure the contract by adding void years and paying the majority of the contract as a bonus. That would reduce his cap hit to about $4 million for the season and defer the rest to 2025. The Jets could also extend Reddick but at the moment most of the Jets focus has been all on 2024.
The Jets this year have added about $72.4M in new player contract salary for 2024 spread out across 13 players. Only four of those players are also on the roster in 2025 and they account for just $18.7 million in salary with only $3.5 million of the salary being guaranteed. For the most part the Jets have seemingly been focused on avoiding any long term commitments this year though I guess that could change with Reddick.
Reddick should be a significant upgrade for the defense as a whole. While older than Huff, Reddick is a much more complete player and makes more sense to the Jets at this number than Huff did. The Jets coaching staff did not see Huff’s role expanding beyond being a 40% playtime player. Reddick will likely remain on the field for 75% of the teams defensive plays unless they fall out of contention and try to keep the draft pick from jumping higher.
For Philadelphia this is a pretty brilliant trade. They had already made the decision to move on to the 26 year old player in Huff and were able to really get a good haul in a trade. One of the big inefficiencies in the trade markets are that team’s often devalue future picks and here the Eagles could be gaining a 2nd round pick in 2026 which is basically gold in todays NFL. Reddick at this point was just going to be a distraction for the team and to get this kind of return is really strong. It is one of the big advantages the few teams in the NFL who have a long term vision have over the others in the NFL.