Seahawks banking on the 2018--not the 2019--version of Jarran Reed. And he knows it.
Will the real Jarran Reed please rise up?
He’s planning on it.
The Seahawks are banking on it.
Is Reed the defensive tackle who roared with 10 1/2 sacks for Seattle in 2018 playing next to elite rush end Frank Clark?
Or is he the relatively muted tackle who has five sacks in his other three NFL seasons combined? That includes last year, after Seattle traded Clark to Kansas City instead of paying him $20 million per year. Then Reed got suspended by the NFL for the first six games stemming from an alleged domestic-violence incident. He finished with just two sacks in 10 regular-season games.
Reed has just five sacks combined in his three NFL seasons outside of 2018.
This spring, the Seahawks gave their second-round draft choice from 2016 out of Alabama a new contract worth $23 million over two years. That shows they think the real Reed is more the 2018 one than last year’s—or 2017’s, or ‘16’s—versions.
“I didn’t want to leave Seattle,” he said this week. “I feel like I had unfinished business here, just compared to the year I had last year. ...
“The team had faith in me, gave me an opportunity to have another chance by re-signing me. It was pretty easy, you know, that I wanted to stay here.
“I love it here in Seattle.”
The defensive line lost Quinton Jefferson to Buffalo, Al Woods to Jacksonville and three-time Pro Bowl end Jadeveon Clowney to (so far) nowhere in free agency. So the Seahawks absolutely need Reed to approach that 10 1/2-sack version of himself. Reed, who turns 28 in December, 32-year-old Bruce Irvin and 29-year-old Benson Mayowa are the most accomplished sack men on a pass rush that finished 2019 next to last in the NFL in sacks.
Reed is within the most problematic area of this perennial playoff team. The pass rush appears to be Seattle’s decisive position group. With an improved one, the Seahawks have the talent to seize back the NFC West title from rival San Francisco and thus finally have home playoff games into and potentially past their treacherous divisional round. Coach Pete Carroll and anyone who knows the history of the franchise realize that’s the path to get Seattle back to the Super Bowl.
With a pass rush, the Seahawks seem destined for another wild-card entry into the playoffs at best, and thus road playoff games. Those have historically been their demise. Seattle has five straight losses in away divisional-round games.
Carroll says he thinks Reed has the skills and leadership to boost the needy pass rush, just not the recent results to show for it.
“He’s causing problems,” Carroll said during the playoffs in January, after Reed had just two sacks in 10 regular-season games plus Seattle’s wild-card playoff win at Philadelphia. “He’s just playing good ball. He really is. ...
“He’s playing good ball. He’s a really dependable guy in our system. Really, a great leader for us, too.”
Carroll and the Seahawks thought Reed would have another top edge pass rusher in his 20-something prime lining up next to him this season. They thought they would have Clowney re-signed by now.
He remains unsigned with a week until the season starts. He’s waiting for another team to make competitive offers to leverage what the Seahawks offered him in a multiyear deal in March.
The Seahawks pushed to sign former Pro Bowl edge rusher Everson Griffen in free agency. But Griffen signed with Dallas instead last month.
Seattle drafted Darrell Taylor to be a new “Leo,” weakside speed rusher. But the second-round pick has yet to practice. The top rookie pass rusher is likely to begin the season on the non-football-injury list following surgery Jan. 30 to fix a stress fracture in his lower leg and complications coming back from having Titanium rod inserted into his leg.
Rookie fifth-round pick Alton Robinson has been a pleasant surprise in camp. He’s been getting first-team reps at end this week in practices, reps Taylor would be getting.
Reed and returning starter Poona Ford, back from a strained calf this month, are the starting tackles in base 4-3 defense Seattle played more than any other NFL team last year. This year, the defense has a nickel back it feels it can trust: converted strong safety Marquise Blair. That may have the Seahawks in more nickel defense this season compared to 2019, when no NFL played extra defensive backs less.
Nickel could mean relatively fewer chances for Reed to sack quarterbacks. This month the defense while in nickel has been using Irvin and Mayowa outside with 2019 first-round pick L.J. Collier and Rasheem Green, last season’s team sack leader, inside at hybrid tackles. That’s a speed-rush option with four ends for obvious passing downs. So far, Reed’s pass-rushing chances appear to be primarily while in base defense.
That sounds counter-intuitive: sign Reed to a $23 million contract, then play him only on early, non-passing downs in base defense perhaps half the time or less.
But the Seahawks haven’t committed that full contract amount to Reed. Not yet. General manager John Schneider front-loaded Reed’s new deal. He gave Reed a $10 million signing bonus and guaranteed his 2020 salary of $4.1 million. The team is not obligated to pay him any of the $8.5 million in base salary and per-game bonuses that are in his deal for 2021.
Much like linebacker K.J. Wright had to with his non-guaranteed, two-year deal before last season, Reed is going to have to earn the second season of his contract.
He’s ready to earn.
“We are very hungry,” he said, “to come back and get to where we were in 2018.
“Pass rush is key. You get more pressure on the quarterback, you know you can kind of rattle him a little bit, help out the back-end guys just doing their job. So we put a lot of emphasis on it this year, especially that we need to get to the quarterback.”
We is he, Reed specifically. If he is the Reed of two years ago, Seattle’s pass rush may be feasting instead of famished again.
“We are looking for guys to go eat,” he said, “guys to be hungry, and guys to make plays.”
