Seahawks quandary: extend Bobby Wagner or Jarran Reed?

How Jarran Reed stacks up against other top tackles

Reed added plenty of quarterback hits and hurries to those double-digit tackles. In fact, he was one of only four interior defenders to notch double digits in all three categories. That’s impressive, but the luster dulls a bit when you see that he was far behind the top players at his position. Here are the stats of Reed and the three linemen who finished ahead of him:

Player                 Team               Sacks     QB HIts     Hurries
Jarran Reed       Seahawks     10.5        13               26
Chris Jones        Chiefs             16           14               44
Fletcher Cox      Eagles            11           24               60
Aaron Donald    Rams              21          20               65

That’s 49.5 pressures for Reed, 74 for Jones, 95 for Cox, and 106 for Donald. Reed had an excellent year, but Fletcher Cox and Aaron Donald got to the quarterback twice as often. Let’s not forget that Cox and Donald have been doing this for years. Reed only had 34 total quarterback pressures in 2016 and 2017 combined. Even the great Cortez Kennedy only topped 10 sacks once in his Hall of Fame career, so it isn’t an easy level of performance.

Reed wasn’t the top run-stopper in the league, either. According to playerprofiler.com, Reed was credited with just one stuffed run. That seems rather incredible, but profootballfocus.com also places Reed far down its rankings versus the run; 80th, in fact. Lest you think PFF hates the Seahawks, they ranked Poona Ford as the 10th-best run defender in the league.