2009 Season Retrospective: Nick Reed

Lowlights

Highlights

Rams at Seahawks September 13

Reed pops from his three point, gives Bulger a hard stare and forces the vet to begin retreating, not into a drop back, but a full blow sprint. Reed drops a shoulder into Alex Barron, plants him and begins pursuit. Hearing the click-clack of Reed's size eight shoes closing, Bulger drops the ball like a decoy and redirects towards the right sideline. He nears the hashmark, ducks, covers and cowers watching on as Reed scoops the ball. Instead of scoring immediately, Reed circles back, wedgies Bulger, and drags him by the jock into the end zone for the score.

Seahawks at 49ers September 20

Matt Hasselbeck is out and Wallace is struggling. The offense needs a jolt. The offense needs Nick Reed.

Reed breaks with the first team offense to start the second half in a formation Greg Knapp calls the Badass-a-Cat. He takes the direct snap, stops, and finds Patrick Willis flying around right end attempting a tackle for a loss. He doesn't evade or engage, but stands stony still. Willis surges but ricochets off like a super ball. Reed surveys the secondary, and like magic, holes appear everywhere as Niners abandon their gaps. He jogs 79 yards, turns and Moonwalks in while throwing Willis the bird.

Bears at Seahawks September 27

Cutler, stares, sunken shoulders, into an indecipherable mass some call a secondary. He just knows this isn't going to work out. His fears are confirmed when Gus Bradley signals Patrick Kerney out and Nick Reed in. Cutler reveals a concealed straight edge and slices vertical gashes up his wrists. Reed rushes over and heals him, stands him up, and sets him back towards his huddle, smiling.

Seahawks at Cowboys November 1

Romo is bootlegging right and away from Tapp's edge rush. He finds Miles Austin running free on a drag route, sets, throws. Austin receives and fluidly redirects into a brick wall named Nick Reed. It's a violent collision. Blood and teeth spurt out through Austin's faceguard. The ball pops high into the air. Reed reaches up, palms it, plants a foot into Austin's exposed stomach, and wears Miles like a shoe on a long fumble recovery for a touchdown.

Seahawks at Vikings November 22

Reed is playing inside, opposite Steve Hutchinson. Brett Favre receives the snap and wraps both hands around the ball and drops into the fetal position. Reed drops into cover. The Seahawks overload the right, blitzing Aaron Curry and Deon Grant. From the turf, Favre sees the retreating Reed, picks himself up, shrugs off the pressure and finds Percy Harvin running free up the right seam. He cocks, fires and flashes a self-satisfied smile. The ball hangs just an instant, and in that instant, Reed sprints from a short hook zone to within yards of Harvin. Harvin abandons his route and runs scared into the visitor's tunnel. Reed catches it over his right shoulder, spins back and eyes Hutch. It's payback time.

Hutchinson has shifted right to compensate for the overload blitz, and knowing the ball is out, is slack shouldered and concealed by the scrum. Concealed, except to Nick Reed. Reed runs not towards the end zone, but towards the pile, puts the football into his right hand, uses it as a club to blindside Hutchinson in the ear hole, catches the staggering guard with his left shoulder, and then, in what can only be called a stiff arm, punches through Steve Hutchinson's body, so that Hutch is skewered around Reed's arm like a shish kabob. Vikings doctors swarm the end zone attempting to revive Hutch, but the damage is too great. He dies around Reed's arm.

In the post game, Reed reveals Hutchinson's dying wish: to be enshrined in Canton a Seahawk.

Seahawks at Texans December 13

Two quick, Reed-less drives put Seattle down 14-0. The offense is sputtering, and Mora refuses to play Reed at quarterback.

Between quarters, Reed takes Hasselbeck in conference, grabs the aged signal caller by his wrists, and inhabits Beck's body, infusing him with incalculable strength and unlimited ass kicking. Hasselbeck completes 40 straight passes for 3,200 yards and 40 touchdowns. Without Reed though, the defense buckles, and Seattle loses 294-280.

Titans at Seahawks January 3

The team has quit on Jim Mora. No one wants to play. No one thinks they are playing for their future, and no one is, but Nick Reed. Reed is playing for the future of mankind. In a complex plot hatched within the White Visitation, a Titans victory will set forth a chain of events unleashing an eons old plague, turning dog against man and child against mother. A plague of madness that diffuses like light and is only cured by brutal, cannibalistic death.

Reed uses his exceptional speed and ability to shape shift to play every position simultaneously. He seals the edge against Michael Roos and then dodges into the backfield to tackle Chris Johnson for a loss. To maintain appearance, he must then double back, play end, tackle, safety, corner, linebacker and yet appear atop Johnson when the ref arrives. It's a challenging assignment, even for Nick Reed.

Meanwhile, between quarters, Reed is deep within the Afghan foothills unearthing Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden has a small vile filled with this super plague, and a thousand armed bodyguards between him and daylight. Quarter by quarter, Reed explodes in, ripping free limbs, using legs to decapitate and heads to dismember. He rips the liver from one and chucks it like a baseball bludgeoning another to death. These explosions of violence are spaced by 45 minute chunks of football, confusing all, and frightening Bin Laden into a catatonic paranoia. It's enough to tire anyone, even Nick Reed.

Johnson surpasses 2,000 yards rushing and then sets the all-time record for all-purpose yards. Reed feels pangs of fear and doubt and shame he's never felt before, and it inspires within him a blood lust. He no longer coldly dismantles bodyguards, but begins making sport of it: Tearing out a femoral artery to strangle one before he bleeds out; gouging out eyes and filling sockets with scorpion eggs; punching through one bodyguard's chest and sending his heart exploding through his back with such force, it hits another and instantly stops his heart.

The game is saved, but Reed is not quite finished. He phases to and fro to create the image of 45 bodies retreating into a locker room. Midway into the tunnel, the Seahawks vanish into thin air. Reed reappears in Afghanistan. He steps around his carnage and towards the cowering Bin Laden. He extends a hand, helps him up and walks him to the entrance. Bin Laden squints at the light and looks on at Reed with fear and hope and anticipation. Reed throws a shoulder around him, pulls him close and then, replacing both hands on his thobe, grasps and throws Bin Laden into the sun.

Outlook: Nick Reed has mastered the universe of man, but can he escape his mortal form and become a being of pure energy?

Yes.