If Ed Reed retires, he'll just vanish

At some point in the future, Ravens safety Ed Reed is going to retire from football. It could be in a month, or it could be in five years.

When it comes to pass, in all likelihood, there will be no news conference. No ceremony or celebration to recognize Reed's remarkable career. He wouldn't go for that kind of pomp and circumstance. According to teammates who know him best, it will just be a phone call to the Ravens, and he'll be gone.

You'll probably see it on the news crawl one morning, maybe while you're making breakfast or attempting to wrangle your kids out the door and off to school. You might do a double-take, just to make certain you saw it correctly. Ed Reed? One of the best free safeties in NFL history is walking away? Can that be right?

Someday it will be. Reed's recent admission that he's mulling retirement because of injuries is not a bluff. Even before this season, Reed contemplated walking away because of a pinched nerve in his neck. No one took it particularly seriously, not even the Ravens. But there was real doubt there. He hated the idea of not being able to pick up his young son and play with him someday years from now because he didn't listen to his body today.

Now, a year later, the neck injury is essentially unchanged. He is 31 years old. He played much of the past season with ligament tears in his hip and groin but was still selected to his sixth Pro Bowl despite missing four games. Moments after the Ravens' 2009 season ended with a 20-3 loss to the Indianapolis Colts - a game in which Reed intercepted Peyton Manning but was stripped of the ball from behind after a lengthy return - he surprised the media and fans, but not his teammates, by putting the odds at 50-50 for returning in 2010.

Coach John Harbaugh said in a news conference last week that after talking with Reed he expects him to return, but acknowledged that it's up to Reed.

"It kind of hit me on the sideline," Reed said. "It hit me now because I don't know how much I'm going to be able to have going forward. It'll be a long offseason just thinking about. It hurts just thinking about it."

Whether he returns or retires, there has never been a more appropriate time to take stock of what Reed means to the Ravens. There is a good chance, no matter how closely you follow the team, that you don't realize the depth of his influence. It goes well beyond game-changing interceptions and school-yard laterals.

To an outsider, this is still Ray Lewis' team. It's a mantra drilled into our heads every time the Ravens appear on television. It's part of the narrative virtually every time the Ravens are talked about or written about. Lewis' personality drowns out all the other story lines.

But behind the scenes - on the practice field, in the film room and in the hallways of the Castle - this team belongs to Reed as much as it does to Lewis.

"He's one of the few people who is not tainted by the business part of the game," Ravens cornerback Domonique Foxworth said. "To some degree, it creeps into all of us, especially guys who have been around it for a while. But he's one guy who I can say honestly, he reminds me of a high school kid. You kind of get hardened by your professional experiences. He's managed to remain genuine in everything he does. While he's in the building, genuinely 100 percent for the betterment of the team, which I don't know that you can say that about anyone else, coach or player, that I've ever met in the league."

'He just loves football'

In the complex realities of an NFL locker room, leadership takes on many forms. And Reed's behind-the-scenes influence might be one of the least talked about, but most important, factors in the Ravens' success.

"A lot of people see this as Ray's team and Ray's defense. Everything about the Baltimore Ravens, a lot of it is focused on Ray," Foxworth said. "And that's the thing about Ed is, he doesn't care. He gives those impassioned speeches that motivate us as a team from time to time. When there is a gripe on the team, or when we need some rest, he'll go upstairs and confront Coach Harbaugh just as much, if not more, than Ray. But that doesn't get reported, and Ed doesn't care. Because he's genuine. It's not about how it looks. It's not about who's going to be [mad] at him. It's not about who is going to love him. It's about what he thinks is best for the team."

That isn't to suggest that there is a rift between Reed and Lewis, or that a power struggle exists. Both are important to the Ravens' ebb and flow. In the modern NFL, no one man has the ear of 52 others, and both players seem to understand that. Lewis is an important mentor to countless younger players, and he deflects and absorbs the majority of the attention, in both good times and bad. It is rare, however, to hear broadcasters or columnists sing hosannas to Reed's leadership skills the way they do to Lewis'.

"By far, Ed is the most popular guy in the locker room," Ravens defensive end Trevor Pryce said. "By far. The greatest compliment I can give to him is he wants none of the attention. A lot of guys around here, and a lot of guys in the NFL, could learn from that. Let other people talk about you. If you're good enough, they'll talk about you. I don't think he cares one way or another. And I genuinely mean that. I really mean it. He [doesn't care] about being in the paper or having his picture out there, that type of thing. That is rare as it gets. Other people, they think a lot differently. They want that attention, they want to talk to the press, they want to be a personality. He just wants to be a football player."

That popularity can be explained in other ways as well. When Reed was injured in the second half of the season, Ravens safety Tom Zbikowski filled in admirably and the secondary didn't suffer the major drop-off many expected. Did that mean Reed wasn't irreplaceable?

That's not the way Zbikowski saw it. Reed wasn't just coaching Zbikowski behind the scenes, going over specifics of where he needed to be and the tendencies of opposing quarterbacks. He was also genuinely thrilled, according to several Ravens, when Zbikowski played well. That's not how it often works in the NFL.

"I don't know what it would be like if you were filling in for other people, but when I was in there, you can genuinely tell he wants you to do good," Zbikowski said. "He wants to help you out. He's constantly giving you pointers, telling you everything he knows. He just loves football. He wants to be around it and wants to see people do good. A lot of good things happen to people like that, but it's because of who he is, not necessarily because of his talent."

Under the radar
Reed does not grant many one-on-one interviews, and for the most part he is elusive when it comes to speaking with the media. Although he is proud of his charity work, done through his Eye of the Hurricane foundation and with students at Booker T. Washington Middle School, he prefers to keep it quiet.

But he is more playful about his reluctance to answer personal questions than he is defiant. Asked recently whether it were true he is making plans to pursue a business degree in graduate school, that his plans for life after football have already begun to take shape, he smiled, then expressed mock outrage that someone had been revealing his secrets.

"Somebody is lying about me," Reed said. "I am going to graduate school, but that ain't got nothing to do with football. I'm still in the process of doing it. It ain't got nothing to do with you all [in the media]. And whomever told you, it ain't got nothing to do with them either."

Reed is not without his faults as a player. He has become a gambler on defense in recent years, a risk-taker who sometimes sacrifices fundamentals in pursuit of a game-changing play. But Foxworth counters that criticism by explaining there is a method to what some people perceive as recklessness.

"Ed is not worried about putting himself in the best position," Foxworth said. "He'll put himself in a bind if it's what's best for the team, and he'll try to create a situation that will make plays for other people. One of the good things about him having so much success, coaches give him a little more leeway to be creative in the way we do things. Some of the things we do out on the field are not always to make Ed's life easier, but they're ways to create plays for other people. It just makes the whole team better and builds confidence. That's why everybody already loves Ed."

No goodbyes
In the end, when this turbulent season finally came to a close, even some of the Ravens still wanted a piece of Reed to hold on to.

The Monday after the playoff loss to the Colts, the players returned to Owings Mills to have their final meetings with the coaching staff and clean out their lockers.

Some of the younger players - Edgar Jones, Prescott Burgess and Dannell Ellerbe among them - were making the rounds in the locker room with jerseys and helmets, trying to collect signatures from everyone who remained.

There is so much uncertainty in the life of a professional football player. When seasons end, many seek something tangible to take with them, something to prove, years from now, they were there, alongside Hall of Fame players like Lewis and Reed.

"He's the best player I've ever played with," cornerback Chris Carr said. "But I always tell people that if Ed Reed wasn't a good player, he'd still be one of the coolest teammates I've ever had. That's just who he is. That is rare to see somebody who talks to everybody, doesn't matter whether they're a free agent or a star, there is that comfort level."

Several times, players walked toward the back of the locker room, hoping Reed would appear, if only briefly, to sign a jersey or say a quick goodbye.

But Reed never showed.

At that very moment, he was leaving the building, having slipped away, outfoxing most of the media.

He walked toward his car with his head down, moving forward but also lingering just a bit. He answered a few questions, but not many.

He looked like a man with so much on his mind, someone who honestly couldn't say when, if ever, he would enter that locker room again.

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(baltimoresun.com)