Ed Reed: I can still play in NFL despite 2013 season

Ed Reed doesn't want to ride into the sunset just yet.

At a charity softball game with former Baltimore Ravens teammate Lardarius Webb, the veteran safety said he still wants to play in 2014 and will be patient looking for the right opportunities.

The 35-year-old Reed said he's "still preparing to play," per The Baltimore Sun's Aaron Wilson. Reed added that he knows that teams "need safeties."

Now that we've hit June, it will be easier for organizations to add veteran free agents -- which will not count against a team's compensatory draft picks in 2015.

Reed, however, doesn't intend on signing with a team in the short term, telling reporters he doesn't plan to attend a training camp.

"I know I can still play," Reed said, reiterating that he could see himself rejoining the Ravens organization in some capacity.

He added that any team interested in him would have to be "the right fit."

After a dreadful 2012 campaign, he began the 2013 season with a rocky start in Houston. After the Texans cut him, the 13-year veteran teamed up with the New York Jets and ended an ineffective season with Rex Ryan.

Reed might still want to play, but teams aren't generally in the business of paying a safety who has lost all his speed.

His best chance at playing in 2014 is injury -- that is, an injury that causes a team to get desperate after the season starts.

As usual with Reed, he hedged his comments, saying that if no team wants to bring him back he'd be fine disappearing, a la Barry Sanders -- the difference here being that Sanders didn't play long enough for his skills to diminish.


(nfl.com)