Unpredictable, influential, ‘one of a kind’: Ravens great Ed Reed enters Hall of Fame as unique star
BALTIMORE – Ed Reed said a little prayer before every football game he played, from high school in Louisiana through 11 seasons with the Ravens:
“Lord, clear my head of all distractions and all the burdens I might bear, so I can perform my very best knowing you’ll always be there.”
Reed is a complicated man living in a complicated world, and he’s happy to go deep in discussing his life as he prepares to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. But the game? He could unlock that part of himself with a few simple words uttered to his higher power.
“Football was easy,” he said recently.
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Reed, 40, will not go down as the first Raven to make the Hall of Fame or the greatest player in franchise history. But we might well remember him as the most interesting figure to don the purple and black – a disruptive weapon with no counter on the field and an unpredictable but deeply influential character off it.
“Is Ed Reed one of a kind?” said Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who lived through ups and downs with the great safety. “Is that rhetorical? ... You go into the Hall of Fame, you’re a legendary football player. But in my mind, there are levels in the Hall of Fame, too. And I think Ed Reed, it would be hard to argue that he’s not the greatest safety in the history of football, right? He’s one of the top 10 players maybe in the history of the game.”
You can summarize Reed’s 12-year NFL career in hard, tidy numbers: nine Pro Bowl selections, five first-team All-pro nods, 64 career interceptions, 13 touchdowns, the Super Bowl ring won in his last start for the Ravens.
But that would miss the wonder of a man who embodied so many contradictions.
He was the genius football improviser who indoctrinated several generations of younger Ravens to the meticulous grind of film study.
He was the guy who sought bonds with older authority figures but led the locker room in speaking out against perceived abuses of power.
He was the Louisiana kid who grew up acutely aware of racism but combated it by forming close friendships with people from radically
He was the introvert who hid beneath a hoodie some days but left lasting impressions on teammates with his advice about how to manage money and the vagaries of public life.
Jeanne Hall, the high school office specialist whom he regarded as a second mother, used to tell him: “Edward, you’re either going to be a preacher or a comedian.”
Though he ended up as neither, her prediction hinted at the breadth of his personality. So how did Ed Reed become Ed Reed?
He laughed recently when asked this question. “It probably came just from growing up in Louisiana, growing up in the mud,” he said. “Not having a whole lot but making it work. Seeing things differently in the South, being overlooked in the South.”
The story began with two loving parents in a crowded apartment along the east bank of the Mississippi River, about 20 miles outside of New Orleans. From his mother, Karen, he learned discipline and care for those around him. From his father, Edward Sr., who will introduce him at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony different backgrounds. Saturday evening, he learned the stoic commitment needed to make a living as a welder (or an All-pro free safety).
“My dad would leave at 4 or 5 in the morning and then I wouldn’t see him until evening,” Reed remembered. “The conversations we used to have, he would tell me, ‘A man takes care of his home first. A man handles his responsibility. He doesn’t ask another man for anything.’ “
His sense of humor and zest for verbal combat? Those came from studying tapes of Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Eddie Murphy and the performers who appeared on “Def Comedy Jam.”
But there was always a silent, contemplative side to Reed, according to him and those who’ve known him longest. As a kid, he’d sometimes pull on headphones pumping with gospel music and tune out everything else.
Reggie Wayne, his college roommate at Miami, recalled frequently entering their apartment to find Reed lost in thought on the couch. No television. No video games. Just the world of his mind.