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ESPN’s Adam Schefter announced this morning that Jets defensive end Haason Reddick intends to hold of training camp until he gets a new contract.
This situation is uniquely bizarre.
In all my years of covering the Jets, this is a first – the team trading for a contract dispute.
I want to make it clear, I’m not taking a shot, or trying to be cute, I’m just being honest. Why would you acquire somebody else’s headache? On paper, it makes no sense.
However, and this is what I’m referencing in the headline, somebody needs to find out what was promised when the trade was made.
If Reddick and his agent said they would honor the last year of his current contract when the trade was made, and then reversed course after the trade was made, why would you want a player like that on your roster?
That would be downright underhanded.
So here is a challenge for all the national insiders who are consistently spoonfed stuff from CAA, the agency that represents Reddick (and some of the insiders as well), to find out what the agreement was when the trade was made.
Isn’t that a huge part of this story?
Don’t ignore that. Find out. Don’t just do the easy part and get it out there that Reddick is holding out. Don’t just do the agents bidding.
If Reddick promised the Jets he’d honor the contract, so they made the trade, and now he won’t, and you claim you have a great locker room, why would you want this guy on your team?
I have nothing personal against Reddick. I’ve never met him. His story is pretty impressive, going from a walk-on at Temple to a first-round pick.
But is it acceptable behavior to tell the team one thing, they made the trade, and then hold them hostage, if that is indeed what happened?
This is the most important part of the story.
And now, are the Jets going to cave to Reddick, even if it’s a reworked one-year deal, after he and his agent might have misled them?
What kind of precedent would that set?
This situation will be a litmus test on the leadership of Joe Douglas.
Will he cave, or will he say, ‘honor your word,’ if Reddick and his agent did say the player would play this year under his current deal, and then test free agency after the season to try and get a new deal?
You hear this angle that the Jets’ trade of defensive end John Franklin-Myers to the Denver Broncos on April 29 changed things because it increased the Jets need at end.
Well, first of all, Franklin-Myers was traded to clear cap space after he refused to take a pay cut after not living up to the big deal the Jets gave him in 2021. He wasn’t bad, but disappeared for stretches.
And maybe, the Jets made the trade because they felt Reddick made Franklin-Myers expendable, and also felt they had Reddick locked in for one year at $14.25 million.
So if Reddick did try to use the Franklin-Myers deal as a leverage, that is wrong, and they aren’t the same kind of players anyway. Franklin-Myers can move up and down the line and play DE and DT, and Reddick is strictly an edge-rusher, who can be a liability against the run.
The bottom line is this – we need the insiders, some who the same agency represents as Reddick, to get us this information – What was the agreement when the trade was made?
July 23, 2024
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