Ed Reed has floored Tom Brady with some hard hits during the course of his career, but the superstar quarterback is the one who apparently caused the future Hall of Famer to undergo surgery.
Reed, the Texans’ new safety, thinks that when Brady slid into him during last season’s AFC Championship game, it was the reason that he had to repair a torn labrum in his hip in the offseason.
“Only play I can look at is when I got kicked by a certain quarterback, but even then I played in the Super Bowl and you saw what happened there,” Reed told the Houston Chronicle. “Even then I had two MCL sprains, a second degree one in the left in the Super Bowl in the first quarter and played through that. So if you’ve got any questions about my heart and how I play and how I work (that’s your answer).”
Reed, 34, had played his first 11 seasons with the Ravens before signing with Houston as a free agent in March, a deal for three years worth $15 million, with $5 million guaranteed.
He underwent surgery on his hip in April and his status for week 1 of the regular season is unknown. Reed missed the first six weeks of the 2010 season after undergoing hip surgery, but he said that surgery involved more significant reconstruction.
“I had surgery on April 30 and I was there for four weeks just like I had surgery last time I stayed about a month,” Reed said. “That’s the best thing to do as far as physical therapy. It’s going well right now. There’s really no timeline. I know what I want and I know what we want as an organization. We’re just going to keep on grinding and keep on working and shoot for September.”