LA Chargers: 5-year history of the 13th overall selection

2017: Haason Reddick, Arizona Cardinals

This pick was not looking good for the Arizona Cardinals heading into the 2020 season. The 2020 season truly was a prove-it season for Haason Reddick as he was not good in his first three years and boy let me tell you: he proved his worth.

Maybe there is hope for Jerry Tillery after all? Just maybe?

In Reddick’s defense, he was being misused on this Arizona Cardinals defense prior to the 2020 season. Despite profiling to be a good pass rusher as an outside linebacker in a 3-4 defense, the Cardinals were using Reddick primarily in the box as an inside linebacker.

He was unable to showcase his abilities to get to the quarterback off the edge and his holes in run defense and pass coverage were exposed. Vance Joseph finally seemed to figure this out at the end of the 2019 season.

According to Pro Football Focus, in the first 11 games of 2019 Reddick played just 43 snaps on the defensive line as opposed to 471 snaps in the box. After a bye week in Week 12 and missing Week 13, Reddick played just one snap in the box in the final four games and 94 snaps on the defensive line.

It took them until the end of his third season to figure out something we all knew when he was coming out of college. As a result, Reddick really turned his career around with a 12.5-sack performance in 2020 in which he also forced six fumbles.