There are coaches in the history of the NFL who commanded as much respect as Bill Belichick. But interestingly, history is an area of professional football that coach Belichick is also something of an expert on. Put simply, he has forgotten more about the game than most of us will ever know.
With this in mind, it speaks to the greatness of a play or a player when Belichick describes something as “one of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen.” This was the compliment Belichick paid to Ed Reed for an interception from Peyton Manning.
it takes a lot to shock Bill Belichick…
this was one of THE GREATEST plays he ever saw in the NFL
✅ film study
✅ instincts
✅ subterfuge
✅ execution pic.twitter.com/5z3tWAHQ04— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) August 11, 2020
It’s not so much the play itself that Belichick loves, however. It was the preparation that went into everything before the play.
“[Reed] lined up on the weak side of the formation, and on the snap of the ball, he turned and ran to the middle of the field like he was going to play in the middle of the field.”
“Reed knew that when he went to the middle of the field, Peyton would come back to the ‘X’, so he ran to the middle of the field, and without even looking at the quarterback, turned and ran back over to the sideline and intercepted it.”
This wasn’t something Reed came up with the week of the game against the Colts, however. Reed knew that there are few quarterbacks to ever compare to Manning for diligent tape study. Reed decided to turn this strength into a weakness.
Favorite Ed Reed on-field anecdote: He intentionally played a certain coverage wrong multiple times early in the season because he knew Peyton Manning would watch it on tape. 10 weeks later, Manning ran a play, threw deep, and Reed sprinted across the field and picked it off.
— Kevin Van Valkenburg (@KVanValkenburg) February 2, 2019
This interception was 10 weeks in the making. That’s what made it one of the great free safety plays of all time in Bill Belichick’s opinion, and that’s just another reason why Ed Reed sits enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
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