Locker-room leader, coach fave Jarran Reed returning to Seahawks on new, 3-year deal
The day before Jarran Reed could begin talking to other teams, he’s staying with his original and most recent one.
The Seahawks reached agreement Sunday to re-sign Reed, their 32-year-old veteran defensive tackle and leader for the locker room and the defense last season.
Reed will sign a three-year contract that with incentives could be worth a maximum of $25 million to return to the team that drafted him in the second round in 2016. ESPN’s Adam Schefter was the first to report the deal Sunday.
Reed’s two-year, $9.38 million contract ended with the final game of Seattle’s 2024 season Jan. 5 at the Los Angeles Rams.
His agreement on his new deal came one day before Reed could have started negotiating with other teams as an unrestricted free agent. The NFL’s so-called “legal tampering period” for free agents is Monday and Tuesday. The market opens with the start of the new league year Wednesday.
Coach Mike Macdonald foreshadowed Reed’s new contract a week and a half ago at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.
The coach said then Reed’s return was a viable possibility.
“Absolutely,” Macdonald said off the podium in a corner of the Indiana Convention Center at his first NFL combine as a head coach.
Asked by The News Tribune Feb. 26 whether he thought Reed will be back in 2025, Macdonald said: “I certainly hope so.
“I mean, I’m confident on how J-Reed feels about us. And he knows how we feel about him.”
Jarran Reed’s leadership
As the Seahawks’ 2024 season went on, the big, gregarious number 90 kept getting a larger role in pep talks on the field at the end of pregame warm-ups. He was featured in postgame celebrations after wins. He was giving out game balls and brotherly love.
He also demanded of his teammates more mental toughness.
In late October, after Buffalo won at Seattle for the Seahawks’ fourth loss in five games, Reed spoke up. He told Pro Bowl safety Julian Love that he wanted to change the standard to which these Seahawks practice.
To more of a “Legion of Boom”-like mentality.
Reed was the only member of Seattle’s defense in 2024 who was on it eight years earlier, when Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor were playing for the Seahawks.
Reed’s rookie season was 2016. The Seahawks were a year and a half removed from back-to-back Super Bowls. They had their famed “Legion of Boom” secondary. They had outspoken, All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner, Pro Bowl partner Bobby Wagner, supreme defensive linemen Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, Tony McDaniel and Ahtyba Rubin on the end of their run as the NFL’s best defense.
Their practices were street fights. A pass completion by Russell Wilson against them sparked shouting and sometimes pushing, and slapping, matches. Getting blocked in a drill was grounds for ridicule, banishment. Film sessions were trash-talking free-for-alls.
“When I got here, the way the guys practiced was at an elite level,” Reed said. “The way they attacked the day...receivers and DBs were always chompin’ at each other. And it was always so physical.
“Down in the front, it was a dog house.”
That’s how the nine-year veteran in his second Seattle go-round became the players’ locker-room fave.
His coach’s, too.
It’s why and how Macdonald sees Reed’s value to his defense and team.
Seahawks’ 2025 defensive line
Now he’s coming back on a defensive line that will feature Pro Bowl veteran Leonard Williams and emerging star Byron Murphy in 2025.
Reed played his first five NFL seasons for Seattle. He left in a contract dispute and got released in the spring of 2021. He played for Kansas City then Green Bay, for one season each. He returned to the Seahawks before the 2023 season.
The question with Reed isn’t about productivity. He had 4 1/2 sacks with 15 quarterback hits last season, the latter number the second-highest of his NFL career. His 11 quarterback knockdowns were the most since 12 in his rookie season with the Seahawks nine years ago. He missed just 2.2% of his tackle chances. That was the best missed-tackle rate of his career.
And he did all that while playing just 60% of snaps in Macdonald’s defensive-line rotation.
The question with Reed will be how Macdonald will use him in 2025 — while wanting and needing to create more opportunities for Murphy.
Seattle’s first-round draft pick last year dominated teammates in training-camp scrimmaging. He dominated preseason opponents as a nose and three-technique tackle. He mauled the Tennessee Titans’ offensive line in the Seahawks’ joint practices with them in Nashville last August, as a nose, three-tech and even end.
But then Murphy played only 49% of the team’s defensive snaps in his rookie season.
That number is likely to — no, needs to — approach or surpass 60% this year.
Plus, the Seahawks are hoping for a surge from Mike Morris entering the often-injured defensive lineman’s third NFL season with the team. They also are seeking a healthier season with more productivity from Cameron Young. The nose tackle and 2023 fourth-round pick played in just one game last season because of a knee injury.
It may be why nose tackle Johnathan Hankins, who turns 33 next month and is a pending free agent, may not be back with the Seahawks in 2025.
Maconald, echoing his predecessor and fellow defensive guru Pete Carroll, said he can never have enough defensive linemen.
So Jarran Reed, come on back.
“Yeah. I mean, I’d love to see those guys come on. But there’s going to be great competition in our D-line, because you only put four out there for the most part when it’s pass rush opportunity,” Macdonald said at the combine. “The best four need to stack those reps so they can rush at a high level.
“It takes a lot. There’s a lot of unspoken chemistry that it takes to rush four as a unit, and you got to stack those reps.
“Again, the D-line room, man, you can never have a deep enough D-line. You’re never going to go into the season like, ‘Yep, we’re good D-line.’”
This story was originally published March 9, 2025 at 4:35 PM.
