As Haason Reddick leads Eagles defense in Super Bowl, sacks aren’t enough for him

By Greg Auman
Published

Counting the playoffs, the Philadelphia Eagles have 78 sacks this season. That's the most in the NFL, and enough that if they can get five in the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, they'll have the most of any team in league history.

And by outside linebacker Haason Reddick's standards, most of those sacks — including his own — have been disappointments.

"My college coach, he always challenged me: Why just go get a sack when you can get a strip sack and get the ball back for the team?" Reddick said Thursday, calling back to his position coach at Temple, Elijah Robinson, now at Texas A&M. "When he said that to me, I understood what he meant. I said that could be a way that I could separate myself. I was conscious of making that a part of my game."

Nobody in the NFL is better at forcing fumbles than Reddick, who had a league-high five in the regular season and a huge one in the playoffs, getting to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy and forcing a fumble early in the NFC Championship Game win over the Niners. Over the last three seasons, he has forced 13 fumbles, more than any player in the league.

"When we acquired Haason, that was one of the things that jumped off the table, that he took the ball away," Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon said. "Not just a high-production sack guy, but he did have a knack for getting the ball out. 

"We really studied that hard in the offseason. We thought that we left some on the table last year. It's a testament to the coaches, how they drill it, and obviously just going back to Haason, he's extremely ball-aware. He's not just trying to sack the quarterback. He's trying to create a takeaway, and when you have that type of mindset, it comes to fruition a lot. That elite skill set of being able to win one-on-one and take the ball away, that's shown up all year."

Reddick is pretty good at racking up regular sacks as well. He had 16 this year, second only to the 49ers' Nick Bosa, and he became the first player to record double-digit sacks in three straight seasons with three different teams. A first-round draft pick for the Cardinals in 2017, Reddick spent most of his first three seasons as an inside linebacker before shifting outside in 2020.

That switch hypercharged Reddick's career. He routinely speaks of this being his third season, not his sixth, because it's his third as an edge rusher, where he's excelled. His 39.5 sacks in those three seasons trail only T.J. Watt (43) and Myles Garrett (44) for the most in the league. He set a lofty personal goal before this year started, knowing it would put him among the very best at his position.

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Eagles pass rusher Haason Reddick hasn't sacked Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes yet. He says it "would be historic" to do so in the Super Bowl.

"My goal for this year, being my third year, was to get 15 sacks," he said. "I broke this thing down, when I first got back to the edge. I looked at how many guys are getting double-digit sacks, how many guys are getting 13, which puts you in that good area, and how many guys are getting 15 or more. That's what puts you in the elite, what separates the elite from the good."

Reddick has finished this season on an absolute tear. In three games at the end the regular season, as the Eagles worked to secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC for the playoffs, he had two sacks in each game. He has built on that in the playoffs, with 1.5 sacks in the victory over the New York Giants and two against the 49ers.

This season brought Reddick his first Pro Bowl honor, and while he wasn't among the three finalists for NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Sunday's game (6:30 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports App) can elevate him to another level entirely. 

Getting to Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes with consistent pressure is a must for the Eagles defense, though forcing turnovers from Mahomes isn't easy.

Mahomes went the entire 2022 regular season without losing a fumble, though he had one in the playoffs against the Cincinnati Bengals. In last year's playoffs, he had another fumble against Cincinnati that was recovered by the Chiefs. A sack in the Super Bowl would be huge, of course, but Reddick sets the bar high.

"It's a want-to, something you have to be conscious of," Reddick says of his approach to each play. "It's always a split-second decision between getting there, and what you're going to do when you get there. For me, if I see the ball, and I can go attack it, that's what I like to do. I've always prided myself on it in that moment."

He goes back to his last game, with two sacks against the 49ers and a game-changing play in hitting the throwing arm of Purdy and limiting him the rest of the game due to a significant elbow injury. He'll point to his second sack in the game as an opportunity that got away, falling short of his ultimate goal.

"That second sack I had, I was pissed off, because when I got there, I immediately went for the wrap," Reddick said, raising his arms at the podium to pantomime his approach to the quarterback. "But if I would have gone for the ball first, it would have been easy to just take the ball out of his hands. I could have probably scored or something, made it a definite turnover. So hell, yeah, I'm still not happy with that."

What makes Reddick especially good at forcing fumbles? His position coach, Jeremiah Washburn, points to his unusual football background, not just as an inside linebacker in the NFL, but playing all over the field before that. He was a running back and safety in high school, walked on at Temple and was still 6-foot, 215 pounds after two years on campus. 

"He has a unique ability to finish rushes," Washburn said. "He has a skill-position background, has carried the ball before, and did different things at Temple and started as an inside linebacker in Arizona. His experience being able to locate the ball and punch it out is a little different than a big guy. He comes from a different mindset."

The Eagles made the playoffs a year ago, but did so with a defense that forced 16 total turnovers, tying for the fifth-lowest total in the league. This year, with Reddick leading the charge, they forced 27, tying for fourth-most, and have forced an NFL-best three fumbles in the playoffs as well.

"It's always on his mind," teammate Brandon Graham said. "When you've been in that moment where you're about to attack the quarterback and get your sack, he's going for the ball instead of securing the tackle. When it's on your mind like that, you're going for the ball every time, and I think that's why he's been successful."

Headlines are always on the quarterbacks at the Super Bowl, but Reddick sees Sunday as a chance to put this Eagles defense up on a platform, to remind the nation of a storyline he thinks hasn't been written enough.

"I don't feel like we've been getting the respect that we deserve this year," Reddick said. "Some people have been talking about us, but not the way you'd think for a team that has 70 sacks in the regular season, up to 78, and we need a couple more to beat the [Chicago] Bears' record. 

"Especially in this era, you would have thought that something like this would have gained more attention. But if we go out there and play the same type of ball we've been playing all year and display this on Sunday, on the biggest stage for football, they'll have to respect us, and we'll go down as one of the best d-lines in modern-day history."

Greg Auman is FOX Sports’ NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.  

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