Ravens safety Ed Reed appeared Tuesday on the "Norris and Davis Show" on 105.7 The Fan. Here's a transcript of Part III of his interview.
Reed: Man I was really excited [about the Anquan Boldin signing]. Once they started talking about Anquan, signing Donte Stallworth, all those guys, I was very excited. I was excited to have Anquan the year before, but you know that didn't happen.
Exactly.
Reed: Yeah, man. To get some guys around Joe [Flacco], around his young career -- him and Troy [Smith] -- to develop those guys, that's huge. I think that's big to get some guys around him. [I'm] not saying that guys haven't been around him to catch the ball, but you know it all goes together. You gotta have the coaching there, too, to make sure those guys get themselves in positions to catch the ball. But the coaches don't play the game at the end of the day. So it's good to see some quality receivers around Joe, and those guys can be active. I don't know what the year is going to hold, so I'm not gonna speak on that, but I think it's good to get some young guys around Joe. To give him a career like those guys [Ben] Roethlisberger has, like the two championships because he had a great team around him. None of those guys do it by themselves. The Peyton Mannings and the [Tom] Bradys, they don't do it by themselves. They have great receivers like Reggie Wayne around them catching the football. Those are the guys that get the credit, but don't get the credit. They say it's always the quarterback. The quarterback does this or the quarterback does that, but there's another 10 guys on the fields with him at the same time.Well, they wear the red jerseys all the way back in high school so it's always been like that.
Reed: Exactly
Ed Reed is our guest. He's got his football camp coming up July 21 and 22 at Randallstown High School. By the way, Metafast is offering listeners to this show eight free scholarships to the camp and we'll have a contest coming up so people, as we get closer, will have an opportunity to send their kids there on scholarship to Ed Reed's football camp. One of the things that you and I have always talked about over the years since the hurricane, you've always been very gracious about updating people about the situation in New Orleans and how the city is bouncing back. It's near and dear to your heart. You reside there, you're from there. I'm very curious because of something you and I have not discussed -- because this is new news -- is the impact of the oil spill down there, and whether you've seen it with your own eye and how it's impacting the community.
Reed: I haven't seen it from my own eye this year, but like I've told a couple people, you just don't know how much oil has been in that water for a long time. This is nothing new. They're just dumping more into it. They just don't care about the Gulf, like the Gulf needs to be removed or something. It's a shame that our own country would let this happen to our own people. Just looking at it, man it's terrible. This is gonna affect everybody in this country, not just people in the Gulf. It's not just those beaches. It's going to affect everybody, animals included, and that's a shame. All these years that we've been drilling and you have no solution to underwater clogging up of a oil spill. Come on, man. All this technology we've got evolving. iPhone comes out with a new [version] more than Prince pumps out CDs back in the 80s. Come on.
I'll tell you something interesting. I'll tell you something interesting. My kid who's 11 and your son is 11 too, he said to me, 'I don't understand something. Explain to me Dad how they have the technology to be able to drill the hole and put the pipes down there and all that. So they had the equipment to go down there in the first place, so I don't understand how they don't have the ability to go down there again.' It must be incredibly frustrating to people down in New Orleans.
Here's where you don't have to do that because when you're [someone] who has his apartment paid for five years by people who do BP's publicity, sometimes you don't have to pay attention, and this is the stuff that makes me angry.
Reed: Either you're gonna help or you're not gonna help, and it's just like when Katrina hit Louisiana. People know what needs to be done people, know that they needed to get back home and rebuild New Orleans and things like that. You had people coming out of the woodwork to go back down to New Orleans and rebuild it. The government man, I'm not gonna say the government itself, but people in places in the government just [aren't] willing to reach that handout.
Yeah, and it looks like they're still not.
Reed: Yeah. It's no different in our school systems in Baltimore and New Orleans or Miami. Those inner-cities, they're not giving kids a chance. They're not giving the teachers a chance to really help those kids. They're making it real tough. You're either gonna help or you're hurting your own country. So it's interesting to see this thing go on like this. We have a bunch of American citizens who step up because that's what we do. We'll step up and go across the world to help people out. When it comes to our own backyard, it's always a different conversation. It's always interesting, man. It always feels like it's the South, but like I said, it's going to affect everybody. It's gonna affect the economy, it's gonna affect the weather. I don't think we're even gonna predict the weather patterns in the future. We're already getting hurricanes and tropical storms and it's just the beginning of July. It's been warming winters, then it's getting really cold into spring. We're not gonna be able to predict these things.
So let me ask you a question. Anyone who is listening to this show is saying, 'Wow he's a really smart guy.' You're gonna play football for not much longer. Is life after football for you in some type of role as an advocate? I don't know whether it's in politics, or in running some kind of think tank, or a foundation or anything like that. But it doesn't sound to me like you are going to retire from football and go live on a farm, or retire from football and go run a business and make millions of dollars. What is after football for you?
Reed: I don't see me making anywhere par to what I'm making right now after football. It's not about that for me. Of course I wanna live, but I don't know, man, I love to coach. I love to have my football camps. I love being a part of that. I've even thought about taking some guys on the road and doing it. That's a lot of possibilities out there. I don't know, it's really unlimited. Hopefully one of those organization might call me or I'll be public speaking or speaking for their companies. You never know, but my passion is to really continue my camps. Hopefully we can build some relationships with some good sponsors to back this for many years. I definitely want to be a part of it and that's what we're reaching out to sponsors for. We're reaching out for a two- or three-year commitment. They are giving away scholarships. We do wanna build parks, but it takes funding to do things.
Goods thing will happen, though. We talked to Cal Ripken this week and he's building a baseball stadium that can be used for football. You're doing the camps. And Metafast actually stepped up and is doing the scholarships, so I see good things coming.
Reed: And Metafast stepped up huge. Not just the scholarships, but to feed the kids, to have power bars out there. We got water. They gave us whatever we needed and they've been right there by our side. If we need anything those guys are stepping up.
Yeah, it's a great company.
Reed: They understand what it's for. And if you're gonna come out here and support these kids up and build these kids up in any way, we got your back. So that's big ups to Metafast. I appreciate everything they do over the years with us because it hasn't just been this camp. It's been turkey drives, and any other thing we did.
Ed Reed is our guest. Let's wrap it up with Ed. Before I let you go, I think people listening to this show will say, 'Alright, it sounds like he's coming back, but I kind of want to know for sure.' So we know that you've got the neck injury, you've got the hip injury, you're hoping to come back. Have you told the Ravens? They went out recently and signed Ken Hamlin. Here's a guy that's been to the Pro Bowl. They're not bringing up Ken Hamlin because they are confident Ed Reed is going to play in Game 1. Have you told the Ravens, 'I'm flat out going to come back this year?' Or is it still up in the air whether or not you will come back?
Reed: I talked to Coach Harbaugh and told him I want to come back this year. Now, I have no gripe with Ken Hamlin. He's a great player. Ken Hamlin, if I'm not mistaken, did sign a contract with Dallas not too long after I signed my contract with the Ravens. Now he's a Raven. So that sounded like a slap in the face to a guy playing the same position, knowing that you're negotiating at the same time. Guys like Roy Williams, the safety, at my position they sit [back] and all this. You look at it from a business perspective, I have to look at it from a business perspective also because I've been in this business for nine years now and knowing I'm not going to play that much longer.
So, it bothered you a little bit then that they signed him?
Reed: No, it didn't bother me. I welcome him. But as a business move they got to look at it like, 'Well, OK, if Ken Hamiln was at Dallas then Dallas though very highly of Ken Hamlin giving him a contract, but now Ken Hamlin is not with Dallas, he's with Baltimore, where this guy was in the Pro Bowl with our safety. He signed a big contract and now gets released and is playing on the same team.' It's no different then like I said with Roy Williams our first year. I went 24 he went fifth. He's with Cincinnati and I'm with the same team. You take the numbers, I'm not negotiating over the phone.
Well, if you are Ed and I'm getting 4% (laughs). That's all I'm saying. We're taking our 4%.
Reed: I can't give you 4%, man, but we can negotiate your things. I'm not going to say it has to be brought to the forefront like that. I talked to the media about my contract situation and I'm not making it a big deal. I think it needs to be taken care of. It also goes back to how I feel. I'm not about to ask the Ravens for anything if I'm not even going to play anymore. There's a lot of things out there to weigh out. Like I said, I appreciate the opportunity that the Ravens have given me, but it also is a lot that goes with the job. And I'm the guy that a good bit goes with. But I am not about to ask them for anything if I'm not going to be playing. Right now my focus is to get myself back. I've been having a lot of trouble, but a lot of fan support has driven me to do my interview. I'm coming back for at least one more year. This year is for the fans. It's not about me, it's not about Baltimore or the Ravens. It's about the fans -- the fans in Baltimore and the fans across the league to see us perform on the football field come Sunday and really appreciate the work that we put in. If the negations continue and we can do some things in the process, then I'm going to welcome it. Not saying I'm not going to call the Ravens again because we have to have some conversations, but right now my focus is to get myself back to 110%. Back to 107-yard return against the Eagles. Back to that performing at a high level, to where if I'm back that first game, we can do some good things.
I know everyone hopes you'll be out there. Best of luck with the camp. Ed, thanks a lot. We'll talk to you soon.