There is a lot of hand-wringing about the Haason Reddick trade to the Jets, about how the Eagles are worse off heading into 2024 without him than they were last season.

And sure, you can add Reddick's departure to the retirements of center Jason Kelce and defensive tackle Fletcher Cox, who were both still playing at an elite level last season.

After all, Reddick has 27 sacks over the last two seasons, and only three other players have more sacks than the 50½ that Reddick has put up since the start of the 2020 season.

Reddick is also a local product, growing up in Camden, playing collegiately at Temple, and saying often that it's a dream to play for his hometown Eagles. Reddick is 29 years old, still in his prime, and he's the only player in the NFL with at least 11 sacks in each of the last four seasons.

Plus, he never wanted to leave in the first place.

And Reddick certainly gave a heartfelt goodbye in his social media post Tuesday when he said in part: "Philadelphia, saying 'thank you' is not enough to express my gratitude for the love and support you showed me in my time as an Eagle. ... To the Eagles organization, thank you for the opportunity to play in my home city. This was a dream for any kid growing up in Camden."

This is where the NFL's intersection of home team loyalty and business meet. Reddick wanted to get paid, and the Eagles didn't want to commit financially with an extension in the range of $25 million or so in average annual value for a player into his mid-30s.

So the Eagles signed Bryce Huff in free agency, who is nearly four years younger than Reddick and coming off a career-high 10 sacks while playing only 42% of the snaps last season.

Yes, it's a risk. Huff's production last season could have been the result of rarely facing double teams on a Jets front-7 that was as good as any in the NFL.

On the other hand, Huff could be where Reddick was four years ago as a potential breakout star.

Reddick never had more than four sacks in any of his first three seasons with the Arizona Cardinals before breaking out with 12½ in 2020. Huff never had more than 3½ sacks in his first three seasons with the Jets before breaking out with 10 last season.

But there are two more ways to look at this:

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Why not Haason Reddick AND Bryce Huff?

The first is that Eagles could have kept Reddick, who was entering the final year of his three-year, $45 million contract. They had already fit in Reddick's team-high $21.9 million salary cap hit even after signing Huff and all of the other free agents.

An edge rusher rotation with Reddick, Huff, Josh Sweat, Nolan Smith and Brandon Graham is certainly stronger than a rotation without Reddick.

But Reddick would not have been happy playing this season without an extension, which the Eagles had made clear they were not doing. Reddick had already hinted strongly as far back as last summer that he felt like he was underpaid.

So what could that have looked like for Reddick and the Eagles this season? Perhaps a training camp holdout, or a disgruntled player not fully on board with a new defensive coordinator?

Even if all of that worked out, and Reddick played like a man on a mission, then left next spring in free agency. At best, the Eagles could recoup a compensatory pick at the end of the third round of the 2026 draft. That comp pick could be worse based on how Reddick plays in 2025, when he'll be 31.

The Jets, however, already surpassed even the best-case comp pick return by trading the Eagles a conditional third-round pick in 2026 that can become a second-round pick if Reddick meets two benchmarks he easily achieved in both seasons with the Eagles (67.5% of the snaps and 10 sacks).

The Tyreek Hill example with the Chiefs, and what it means for Howie Roseman

The other way is that we're looking at Reddick's impact all wrong.

In the summer of 2022, the Kansas City Chiefs faced a similar dilemma. They could have kept their best wide receiver in Tyreek Hill, who was entering his prime − and the final year of his contract − but wanted to be paid among the top wide receivers in the NFL. The Chiefs traded Hill to the Miami Dolphins instead.

Clearly, the Chiefs aren't as good offensively without Hill, and that's still the case. Hill has had 1,710 and 1,799 yards receiving in each of his two seasons in Miami. And it's just as likely that Reddick will once again have double-digit sacks this season for the Jets.

Yet the Chiefs won the Super Bowl in each of those two seasons without Hill.

For one, that shows that no player, other than the franchise quarterback, is irreplaceable. Not Hill, not Reddick.

For another, it shows how priorities have to shift, and that's the job of the general manager. Chiefs GM Brett Veach was able to do this, using the money saved by not keeping Hill to rebuild the defense into one of the NFL's best, while putting together an offense just good enough to win, thanks to Mahomes' brilliance.

Now it's up to Howie Roseman to do the same for the Eagles. So essentially replacing Huff with Reddick has to pay off, along with signing linebacker in Devin White and bringing back safety Chauncey Gardner-Johnson.

But so does an offense that added Saquon Barkley to quarterback Jalen Hurts and wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith.

If all of that happens, the Eagles will be back in Super Bowl contention, and Reddick won't be missed. If not, well, let's just say that head coach Nick Sirianni, not to mention many other players, won't be around to reap the benefits of that 2026 draft pick for Reddick.

Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on X @Mfranknfl.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Why Haason Reddick trade question isn't if Eagles got worse (they did)