Ladies and gentleman, this is why I am so happy Ed Reed is a Jet. This is amazing: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Josh Bush had but one request soon after being drafted by the Jets in 2012. Bush, a safety, asked his position coach, Dennis Thurman, to put him in touch with Ed Reed, whom he had coached in Baltimore. No way, Thurman said. As much as Bush stood to learn from Reed, he was not ready — not yet. “As a rookie, you shouldn’t be trusting yourself as much as Ed Reed trusts himself,” Thurman told Bush. “If you try to do what Ed does, it’ll get you cut.” Bush obeyed Thurman and has made the roster two seasons running, which is why he was present Nov. 13 when the newest member of the Jets’ secondary arrived at their headquarters. Bush introduced himself by saying: “Mr. Reed, how are you doing? I’m your shadow. ”Bush has made good on his promise. He has trailed Reed ever since, watching him on the practice field and in meeting rooms and during one-on-one tutorials, like the three-hour session that changed the way he analyzes film. Bush does not address Reed by his first name. It is always Mr. Reed. When Bush encountered him in the cafeteria on Tuesday, the players’ day off, he asked when Reed would be reviewing film. Right now, Reed told him.Bush ordered his lunch to go and off they went. They burrowed in the defensive backs’ room for three hours. Reed, 35, did a lot of talking. Bush, 24, did a lot of listening, and gawking. Bush says he is still amazed that Reed, after glancing at a formation, pointed at the safety on the screen and said he should be expecting a hitch route.“He hit ‘Play’ on the film,” Bush said, “and sure enough, the receiver ran a hitch, and the quarterback threw it to him.” Thurman, now the Jets’ defensive coordinator, who debriefed them afterward, said: “Josh was a little kid in there. He was like, Wow, that was really neat.”What struck Bush was the way Reed dissected that tape. Basically, it is a progression that follows the practice schedule. Reed begins the week by studying all the passing plays the opponent has run on first and second down. He moves on to third down — third-and-short, third-and-medium, third-and-long — before advancing to the red-zone and two-minute offenses. If Reed wants to confirm his intuition, he told Bush, he will sometime watch an entire game again. Studying like a coach, Thurman called it.“Before you come to work, come to work,” Reed told Bush. When Reed played in Baltimore, where he returns Sunday as a central figure in the Jets’ attempt to thwart the Ravens’ deep passing game, he and Ray Lewis would visit on Tuesdays with the defensive coaches to gauge their initial thoughts on that week’s game plan. The coaches also gave them DVDs so they could begin studying the opponent. By the next practice, Reed was prepared.On one of his first days with the Jets, Reed told the defensive backs that they had a choice when they left practice for the day. They could do whatever they felt like doing. Or, he said, they could watch film. Reed, a nine-time Pro Bowler, chooses to watch film. Now Bush does, too. “I’ve watched more this week probably than I ever have,” Bush said.Reed’s adoption of Bush is a continuation of a pattern established in Baltimore, where he embraced another young safety, Dawan Landry, who as a rookie started beside him in 2006. Sitting in the Jets’ cafeteria Thursday night, Thurman grabbed a bottle of Tabasco sauce and one of fire-roasted habanero and positioned them two inches apart. That is how close Landry was to Reed during meetings, Thurman said. Now Bush stays that close.Reed said, “It helps you as a person when you’re teaching something to somebody to understand it even better.” Bush said that Reed, in their conversations about football, had focused mostly on the present. He has not, for instance, discussed the origins of his devotion to film study, which dates to high school, in Destrehan, La., and was refined in college, at Miami. Randy Shannon, his defensive coordinator with the Hurricanes, said in a 2012 interview that Reed could discern a route by the way a receiver positioned his hands.That ability derives from trusting his eyes, which Reed has urged Bush to do. While analyzing clips of Baltimore’s loss last month at Pittsburgh, Reed paused to offer Bush advice. It was the same advice Lewis once gave him, advice that he, in turn, gave to Troy Polamalu years ago at the Pro Bowl. “When you see something on film from studying a team, just believe it,” Bush said Reed told him. “He said that’s how he makes a lot of his plays. He believes that something’s going to happen, so he just goes. "Thurman’s favorite example of this phenomenon occurred on New Year’s Day 2006, early in the third quarter of Baltimore’s game in Cleveland. Before the snap, Reed, who was supposed to patrol the deep middle, identified a weakness in the Browns’ alignment. He took one step toward the middle, crept in and intercepted a pass. When Reed returned to the sideline, Thurman told him, “Dude, nice play, but you know you’re supposed to be. ...”Reed cut him off. “Coach,” he said. “I’ve seen it on tape.” Bush wants to achieve that level of mastery. He has started feeling more confident at practice, more comfortable, more inclined to trust his instincts. Those instincts have told him not to expect another one-on-one film review Tuesday.“I’m sure it’ll be a bigger group,” Bush said. “Everyone wants to be there with Mr. Reed.”
