The area where Haason Reddick wants to keep stepping up next season

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The night before the Eagles played in the Super Bowl, Nick Sirianni opened the floor for anyone who wanted to speak.

So players like Jason Kelce and Jalen Hurts and Lane Johnson, the typical leaders, delivered their messages. But there was another speech that really seemed to resonate and it came from Haason Reddick.

“He was just like, ‘F— everything else. Just unload the clip,’ metaphorically,” Quez Watkins recalled. “He was just saying give it all you got. Blood, sweat and tears, everything you have for this last game. Just go get it. That was the biggest message.”

It’s the type of speech Reddick wouldn’t have been able to give at the beginning of the season.

Because even though he was the big free agent signing of the offseason and coming off back-to-back double digit sack seasons, Reddick joined a team last March that was already full of leaders. Guys like Kelce, Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox had been in Philly for over a decade so Reddick wasn’t going to walk through the door and declare himself a leader. He wasn’t going to just start giving speeches.

That takes time.

“For me, knowing that, it was simply coming in and letting my work speak for itself and leading that way,” Reddick said on Tuesday as the Eagles cleaned out their locker room at the NovaCare Complex.

“As things continued to go on throughout the year, I tried to be a little bit more vocal as a leader and something that I’ll continue to work on as far as that. Just giving my knowledge and speaking to the team, talking to the team more and giving more speeches, letting them know that I’m here and giving them my knowledge, my experience, whatever I can do to help some of these young guys become better players and stuff like that.”

Reddick, 28, said he never gave much thought about becoming a leader, especially a vocal leader, before. But he now strives to become that in Philadelphia.

The Eagles were Reddick’s third team in three seasons but he signed a three-year deal in March and after an incredible season, he finally gets to go into an offseason knowing where he’ll be playing the following year.

Many of his teammates don’t have that luxury. There are a ton of pending free agents on the defensive side of the ball , including Cox, Graham, T.J. Edward, Kyzir White, Marcus Epps, James Bradberry and C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

“Like you said earlier, this team is not going to look the same next year,” Reddick said. “I don’t know who’s going to be back, who’s going to be gone. I just know that I’ll be here for a second year. I’m coming back and I do want to step up a little bit more in that (leadership) aspect.”

Reddick said he feels a great sense of relief knowing that he’ll be back in Philly next season. That stability was given to him when he signed a three-year, $45 million contract in March to join his hometown team.

Before becoming a vocal leader, Reddick wanted to show that leadership with his play. He had the best season of his career and one of the best seasons we’ve ever seen from an Eagles pass rusher. In 20 games this season, Reddick had 19 1/2 sacks, was named to his fourth Pro Bowl and finished fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

As he returns for Year 2, he’s looking forward to being a cornerstone for the franchise moving forward.

“Getting ready to make the transition to be one of those pieces that the team is going to have to lean on,” Reddick said. “I’m just going to do whatever I can in my power to uplift everybody. It will look a little different. Just uplift everybody and do whatever I can to help this team get back and achieve the goals that we wanted to achieve this year.”

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