Confidence.
Apparently, football fans don’t like players trying to max out their value.
Take the case of newly signed Bucs edge rusher Haason Reddick. Last year when the Eagles were dangling him for tradebait, Joe nearly had a stroke he beat his keyboard with an endless string of missives that the Bucs absolutely needed to get this guy if they had any plans on making any sort of a postseason run.
They didn’t and they didn’t.
Not quite a year later, well, what do you know? The Bucs signed Reddick as a free agent. How about that?
At the time, Joe seemed to anger some Bucs fans who weirdly didn’t want a guy who was coming off of a four-season scorched earth run where he had 50.5 sacks to get market value.
Meanwhile, the Bucs were so desperate for a sack they brought Shaq Barrett out of mothballs.
Joe is guessing the reason why some Bucs fans were triggered by Joe’s desire to get Reddick was that Reddick held out. He didn’t want to be traded (to the Jets) and when he was, he didn’t want to play for a trash organization like the Jets.
Joe sure couldn’t blame him.
Yesterday at the NFL owners meetings at the swanky Breakers in Palm Beach, Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht was asked if he was turned off at all or hesitant that Reddick didn’t seem all-in mentally with the Jets.
Licht said he was not.
(Column intermission: Joe last night admired, among other things, that at the owners’ media party, Gracie Hunt, Sean McVay’s wife and Kay Adams were strolling around and mingling with the proletariat.)
“Not from a character standpoint,” Licht said. “Every situation is different, there’s a story behind everything.
“I think [2024 is] behind him, and in some ways, I was kind of excited. It gave us an opportunity to potentially get great value. I’m rooting for him to have a great year.”
Joe is just going to leave out how Reddick was available last year but for reasons unclear, he wasn’t good enough then. But now? Pop the champagne bottles!
But seriously, Joe is just so happy the Bucs have an edge rusher, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
Even now though, Joe sees commenters that still kill Reddick over holding out with the Jets.
Joe would like to remind these folks of a couple of things: Derrick Brooks and Tristan Wirfs also held out for more money. Are these two Bucs icons all of a sudden dirtbags because they looked out for themselves and got what they felt they deserved?