Ed Reed Presenting Major Challenge for Tom Brady and the Patriots’ Offense

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Sep 30, 2009

Ed Reed Presenting Major Challenge for Tom Brady and the Patriots' Offense

Long ago, Ray Lewis became the face of the daunting defense of the Baltimore Ravens. Watching the team play, however, it’s clear that Ed Reed is simply their best player.

While Lewis still is a formidable opponent in the middle of the field, Reed’s dynamic ability to gravitate toward the football has made him a key focal point of opponents’ game plans — so much so that even one of the best quarterbacks in history wishes he didn’t have to face him.

“I was hoping that he’d take this week off,” joked Tom Brady at his locker on Wednesday. “He’s tough back there on quarterbacks. It feels like he leads the league in interceptions every year, which is tough to do when every team goes into the game thinking that we’re not throwing Ed Reed interceptions. And he does. He just makes some spectacular plays.”

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, who’s been around the game of football for quite some time, offered Reed the highest praise possible.

“I don’t think there’s anybody any better in the game, or [that] I’ve seen anybody any better than Ed Reed in terms of disguise, ability to read the quarterback,” Belichick said at his news conference. “I think the quarterback has to know every time that ball leaves his hand where Ed Reed is because that guys makes … He can play sideline to sideline.”

Belichick called upon the time he had the opportunity to coach Reed — albeit for the Pro Bowl — as a period when the coach gained a better understanding of how the safety stays so dominant.

“He’s a rare, rare player at that position, as good as any I’ve ever seen,” Belichick said. “He can do it all back there. He can play corner if they want him to play corner. He blocks kicks. He returns kicks. He returns interceptions for touchdowns. He scoops up interceptions for touchdowns. He’s always around the ball and that’s usually bad for the offense when he is. He’s a great football player.”

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh was somewhat candid in his conference call regarding ways to beat his Pro Bowl safety.

“Ed has his idiosyncrasies as a player, just like they all do,” Harbaugh said. “You may not attack the player, but you attack the scheme. You try to give guys a certain responsibility that he’s not comfortable as much against a guy that matches up well against him.’

Even Reed’s teammates have been haunted by him.

“During the summer and during training camp, you never know where he’s going to be,” quarterback Joe Flacco said in his conference call. “He does really well around the ball. If he gets around the ball, he’s going to go up and he’s going to make the catch. And then once he makes the catch, it’s very tough to tackle him. He’s a great player and we have a lot of those guys on the other side of the ball, so it’s fun to be with them every day.”

Brady spoke specifically to what Reed does in the defensive backfield to disrupt an offense, saying that every team on every play takes note of where No. 20 is lined up.

“He’ll be exactly where he’s supposed to be,” Brady said. “It might not be what the defense was called to be, but he’ll be where the ball is. And that’s what makes him such a great player, it’s the things where it’s not really his responsibility, but he makes the play on the ball. Then, when you think he’s really undisciplined back there, you try to take advantage of it, and then he’s there right where he should be, playing his responsibility. We always say there are guys that guess, but he’s a guesser that always gets it right.

“To me, it’s not guessing, it’s more knowing.”

Brady and the offense will do their best to try to force Reed into guessing wrong. Last time these two teams played each other, Reed got the best of Brady, but not the rest of the offense.

The safety picked off a deflected Brady pass in the final minute of the first half, but Reed fumbled the ball when hit by Patrick Pass. The Patriots dodged a bullet on that play and the game in general, espaping Baltimore with their perfect record still in tact.

This weekend, the Ravens bring their perfect record into Foxborough, and Reed just may be the reason it stays that way.

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