Ed Reed is in chill mode, sitting on a stool in the bar area of an Owings Mills restaurant after a week of practice while taking in a show put on by fellow safety Will Demps.
Demps is in joke mode, trying to pull one over on a trio of women who are swearing that they recognize both as Ravens. It has Reed cracking up in laughter.
"We don't play for the Ravens," Demps says, "We work for the Ravens. We're cheerleaders. You can see us down on the sidelines at games."
Demps performs a Terrell Owens-like dance minus the pompoms to the further amusement of Reed before finally coming clean. "The man is just funny," Reed said.
"I don't have a woman in B-more yet, so I'm looking for one. I hang out with Demps because girls love him. That's [Any Given Sunday's] Willie Beaman."
This is what, as Reed puts it, he and his boy Demps do, which is comparable to what any number of single, kid-free, financially well-off males in their mid-20s do on a typical Friday night.
They go to work, and sometimes afterward, they go out. A half-hour before the young women arrived on the scene, Demps, who is half-Korean, half-African-American, gave Reed an impromptu lesson in Korean.
"How do you say, 'You are a beautiful young lady'?" Reed asked.
Demps has Reed repeat after him in Korean, then gives him an example of how such recently learned knowledge could be applied.
"It's a hard language to learn," Demps said.
"But if you say that to a girl, she'll be like, 'What is that?' You say, 'That's Korean.' Then she'll be like, 'Oh, you know Korean?' Then you're in."
"If I use those words, they are going to be like, 'How you know Korean?' " Reed said. "I'll just say I'm bilingual."
With a team-high five interceptions and a strong Pro Bowl push in his rookie season, it seems Reed could be capable of doing and knowing anything. While giving the Ravens everything they wanted out of the NFL draft's 25th pick, he and Demps have also formed one of the strongest friendships in the secondary after starting 10 games together this season.
They were the only rookie starting safety tandem in the league before Demps gave way to veteran Anthony Mitchell three games ago.
"I'll have to take it back to my college days, and I never had two freshmen starting for me," secondary coach Donnie Henderson said.
Even without starting now, Demps is receiving a considerable amount of playing time in passing situations for Mitchell and had three tackles in Sunday's loss to the Cleveland Browns. He will likely be used in the same role in the regular-season finale in Pittsburgh.
Though Demps seemed to wear down as the season progressed while Reed's play got stronger, Ravens officials still feel the two might easily be the future of the secondary if Gary Baxter remains at cornerback. Mitchell is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
The two have combined for 140 tackles, two sacks and six interceptions.
"Safety, barring any injuries, could be one of the strengths of the team moving into 2003," said Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome.
Reed, 24, and Demps, 23, have done their part away from the field to ensure that would be the case. Both players find it easy to be around each other despite different backgrounds and different roads to the NFL.
Reed, whose father, Ed Sr., was a welder at a shipyard, is a first-round draft pick who grew up in the Louisiana bayou in St. Rose. He was a three-sport star at Destrehan High before becoming a four-year starter and emotional leader of the Miami Hurricanes. Though loud on the field, Reed has a tranquil demeanor off it.
"I grew up in the bottom of the barrel," he said. "I grew up in a one-bedroom with five brothers. I'm the second to oldest.
"With four brothers, one of us was always in trouble. Therefore, my mom and them stayed mad. So if you did anything, you had a whipping coming. So I would just sit in the house and chill, watch TV and drink Kool-Aid. That's why I just take it how it comes. I grew up in a struggle and it wasn't easy for me."
Demps, meanwhile, whose father was in the Air Force, was born in South Carolina but lived much of his early life in South Korea before settling near Los Angeles.
"Off and on, I was in Korea about five years. My first school was in Korea in kindergarten," Demps said. "When I went to American school and they wanted us to count to 10, the first thing that came out of my mouth was Korean. That's the first language I learned."
He was a walk-on at San Diego State who eventually earned all-Mountain West Conference honors. That was not enough to get Demps drafted, and after signing a rookie free-agent contract with the Ravens, he was a long shot to make the team.
"I can imagine how Will came up, traveling a lot, growing up in different environments," Reed said. "Then not getting drafted, and he was a walk-on. Now, he's got a story. We when did our first interview together, I was like, this is my boy. This is who I want to ride or die with on the field."
Off the field, too.
"We go out at very accommodating hours," Demps said. "It's not like we have to hang out with our fiancees or watch our kids.
"Early on, we went down to D.C. and had a great time. We got back late, bonded that whole time. The car ride down there, we learned a lot."
It was not their last evening out, and that day may not come for some time, especially with the foundation laid this season.
"You know what to expect from that person," Reed said. "You know to be accountable. It's the little things that will show you who is a good player. Me and Demps, I know how he is going to react to certain things. I know how to talk to him more than anything, on the field and off the field. He's going to go through some things on the field that you are going to have to say something to him, and you might not know what to say if you don't hang with him like we hang together.
"Me and Demps are going to be together a long time. I can just feel it."