Plenty want to see a Haason Reddick trade to the Lions, but he isn’t the right replacement for Aidan Hutchinson.
Despite the Detroit Lions emphatically blowing out the Dallas Cowboys in Week 6, not everything was a celebration in Arlington last Sunday. In victory, the Lions also suffered a huge loss when Aidan Hutchinson, the most vital player to Detroit’s pass rush, suffered a broken tibia and fibula in the third quarter.
The hits have kept coming for a Lions defensive line that had looked much improved to start the season. Marcus Davenport suffered his own season-ending injury in Week 3’s matchup against the Arizona Cardinals, as well as Derrick Barnes, the team’s skilled and versatile linebacker who wore many hats for Detroit’s defense, including the SAM linebacker role that the team desperately searched their 90-man roster for depth during training camp and the preseason.
In the wake of all these injuries, how do the Lions move forward with their lofty, Super Bowl aspirations for 2024? The knee-jerk reaction is to consider what talent is available from around the league via trade. Fans naturally dream big, looking to marquee players on struggling teams as possible solutions to the Lions’ current situation.
Included in the chatter of the high-value options like Maxx Crosby and Trey Hendricksons is Haason Reddick, the former Philadelphia Eagles pass rusher who was traded to the New York Jets during this past offseason. Reddick has yet to play—or practice, for that matter—for the Jets, as the two have been embroiled in a lengthy and messy dispute over a contract extension the 30-year-old veteran is looking to sign before hitting the field. Now he’s firmly on the trade block.
After a slow start to his NFL career, Reddick emerged as one of the premier pass-rushers in the league during his fourth season, racking up 12.5 sacks. Since his breakout season, Reddick has totaled 50.5 sacks over the last four years—the fourth-most sacks by a player over that timespan according to Stathead.
The problem with Reddick’s fit in Detroit is that he wouldn’t fill the void left by Hutchinson along the defensive line—he would be a replacement for Barnes at the team’s SAM linebacker position.
For starters, Reddick isn’t much of a run defender, and certainly isn’t the size of player Detroit is looking to set the edge. At 6-foot-1, 240 pounds, Reddick fits the mold of the pass-rushing linebacker in Detroit, much like Barnes (6-foot, 240 pounds) and Houston (6-foot-1, 245 pounds). Hutchinson (6-foot-7, 285 pounds), Josh Paschal (6-foot-3, 275 pounds), and Marcus Davenport (6-foot-6, 265 pounds) give you the sense of the type of size and length the Lions prioritize for their edge defenders, who need the ability to both crush the pocket when pass rushing and hold the edge in run defense.
Reddick’s run defense throughout his career has been… existent. It’s certainly not his strong suit despite getting the opportunities. In 2023, Reddick ranked t-110th among 120 qualifying edge defenders in run stop rate (3.5%), recording just nine stops across 262 run defense snaps according to Pro Football Focus. In 2022, he ranked 100th out of 128 qualifying edge defenders in run stop rate (4.3%). The year before that, he finished just outside the top-50 (t-56th) with a 6.4% run stop rate.
Rushing the quarterback is his calling card, so when you consider his fit as the team’s replacement at SAM, wasn’t it Houston’s inability to set the edge in run defense or drop back in coverage that made him just another guy in the room? Reddick has played 48, 66, and 73 coverage snaps over the past three years respectively after he earned a 29.2 coverage grade on 347 coverage snaps in 2019 and ranked 165th out of 168 qualifying players.
The other obvious issue is the contract Reddick is looking to sign before returning to action. Detroit has taken care of their own this year, signing players like Jared Goff, Penei Sewell, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and, most recently, David Montgomery to contract extensions. Talks between the Lions and Alim McNeill have also reportedly started, so while Detroit has opened up the checkbook to reward and lock down their pillars on offense, the team has yet to make a serious financial commitment to anyone on defense. Would the first player Detroit takes care of on that side of the ball be a player who has yet to play a single down for the team? The same player that would still need to work themselves into football shape and require a ramp-up period before suiting up for Aaron Glenn’s defense?
Speaking of cost, it’s hard to know what trade capital the Jets will be looking for in return. They spent a conditional third-round pick for Reddick and haven’t seen any of that in return on the field. So it stands to reason they’ll be looking for somewhere in that ballpark. To complicate things for the Lions, built into the conditions of that trade is that New York would have to give up a second-round pick instead if the Jets were to trade him to an NFC team. So either the Jets won’t be looking to deal with a team like the Lions, or it’s going to cost Detroit a little more.
It isn’t a matter of talent with Reddick, but a matter of fit—both schematically and financially—that brings about more questions than answers for the Lions in the aftermath of Hutchinson’s injury, specifically.
