At long last, Haason Reddick is making his Jets debut Sunday after a holdout that kept him out of action for all of mandatory minicamp, training camp and the first seven weeks of the 2024 NFL season.
Reddick lost a lot more than time around the team with his decision to stay away.
Before agreeing last weekend to a reworked one-year contract with New York, Reddick racked up $4.5 million in fines, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported Sunday on NFL GameDay Morning. He will earn a maximum of $10 million on the new deal, short of the $14 million he was slated to make in the final season of his contract.
Even worse in hindsight, Reddick turned down a deal before the start of the season that would have earned him $20 million, Rapoport added. Reddick was looking for a long-term solution in the contract standoff with his new team but didn't get what he wanted at the end of the day.
The Jets lost out on nearly half a season of production from Reddick but ended up turning lemons into lemonade.
The money New York saved from Reddick's holdout and fines went into paying Davante Adams, whose contract the Jets absorbed when they acquired him 12 days ago in a trade with the Raiders, Rapoport added.
Adams' base salary was $16.89 million and he also had $510,000 in per-game active roster bonuses. In the trade, the Jets took on the prorated portion, which came out to $11.6 million, and then agreed to a contract restructure of the '24 year to lessen the cap hit. The wideout has two years remaining on his deal, unlike Reddick, who is a free agent after this season.
In his Gang Green debut in Week 7, Adams recorded just three catches on nine targets for 30 yards in 53 snaps. We'll see Sunday whether Reddick in his first game action with the Jets -- and of the season -- will have a bigger impact after half of a campaign wasted.
