Jarran Reed: Fight with Derick Hall was for a ‘bonehead play’ slipping Seahawks can’t have

Four days after he fought on the field with teammate Derick Hall over what he still calls Hall’s “bonehead” play, Jarran Reed was still steaming.

In a hot tub.

“I was just in the tub,” the Seahawks’ defensive tackle said as he shuffled, shower shoes squeaking wet, to the podium for a press conference Wednesday.

He had a huge, team-blue towel wrapped around his waist.

“I promise you I have clothes on underneath,” Reed said, smiling.

He wasn’t smiling Sunday.

Hall needlessly pushed Bills quarterback Josh Allen to the Lumen Field turf following the Buffalo quarterback’s incomplete pass on third down in a 7-3 game. Instead of a field goal late in the first half of a still winnable game for Seattle, Buffalo took Hall’s gifted personal foul, the 15-yard penalty and scored a touchdown. The Bills took a two-score lead into the second half.

The Seahawks never got closer. They lost for the fourth time in five games.

Reed was incensed at what Hall did. An elder on the Seattle’s defense, the 31-year-old ninth-year veteran grabbed Hall and screamed at the second-year linebacker, directly in the middle of the field -- and almost as referee Ron Torbert’s flag was hitting the ground.

They continued fighting in the defense’s huddle, then on the sideline during an ensuing time out. Hall lunged at Reed. They grabbed each other’s face masks and shoulder pads before senior assistant head coach Leslie Frazier and others separated them.

Coach Mike Macdonald on Wednesday was trying to move the Seahawks past their 31-10 home loss to the Bills.

“I hope you have a lot of questions about the Rams,” he said as he began his press conference four days before Seattle (4-4) attempts to get right against NFC West rival Los Angeles (3-4) at Lumen Field (Sunday, 1:25 p.m., channel 13).

Yet Reed still was looking back at Hall’s massive mistake.

“For one, emotions are in football, right? But we’ve talked about what Josh Allen could do all week, with the flopping and everything,” to draw penalties, Reed said.

“It was a bonehead play.

“But I just wanted to let him know that we can’t do that at that time. That was a critical play, a critical time in the game. When you do stuff like that, it leads to explosives.

“That’s what we’re trying to eliminate.”

Derick Hall’s reacts to Jarran Reed’s leadership

Reed said he felt the necessity to demand accountability in that moment, in the middle of the field, for his entire, struggling team to see.

“I think that when you do that and we’re trying so hard to just play a clean game, and it’s already a game with a lot of penalties, you don’t want to see another one,” he said. “So for me, it’s just I had to do better on my part to address it better. That’s why I went.”

Hall’s summation after the game of what Reed yelled at him: “Just to be smart.”

Reed then followed Hall to the sideline. They stayed heated.

“I doubled back on him,” Reed said Wednesday. “I said ‘Look, we were heated at the time. Of course, I’m mad. You want to get off the field. It was going to be a huge play. We could’ve taken points off the board.’

“But, I went back to talk to him. I explained the scenarios and situations and everything that was calculated in my mind just so he could understand where I was coming from. And I wanted to hear him out as well.”

Asked if he was surprised Hall responded by coming at him, Reed said: “No, I’m not surprised. It happens. He’s very much mad at himself about it, and I understood that.

“Once again, that’s why I went back and talked (to him) when we had a calmer manner.”

In the locker room following the Seahawks’ 21-point home loss, Hall said he and Reed ended the incident on good terms.

“He loves the game. I love the game. And in that moment, things got heated,” Hall said Sunday evening. “But he’s a leader. He’s the leader of our group, and when stuff hits the fan, you have to lean on the guys.

“And maybe we both could have done something a little bit better, but he wants me to go out and play smart, play fast, play physical. And that was basically his message in that moment.”

Mike Macdonald’s balancing act

The weekend before, former Seahawks Super Bowl linebacker Bruce Irvin had been congratulating Hall inside the visiting locker room at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Irvin’s hometown. That was after Hall returned for a touchdown a fumble forced by teammate Boye Mafe on a sack of Kirk Cousins, in Seattle’s 34-14 road win over the Falcons.

Irvin this week posted on social media he didn’t get the hubbub over Reed and Hall going at it in the Bills game.

That is true. But Irvin’s back-to-back Super Bowl Seahawks were much more talented than this 4-4 team, with an entirely new coaching staff coming off consecutive 9-8 seasons.

These Seahawks don’t have the elite, experienced players to not only overcome such in-game fights but use them as a catalyst. That what Irvin’s Legion of Boom Seahawks of 10 years ago did.

Rookie coach Mike Macdonald is trying to balance the emotions of his players that are still in the early, inconsistent, growing stages of his program.

Macdonald met with Hall Monday about his penalty and his reactions with Reed.

“I know guys were frustrated towards the end (of the Buffalo game), and you like us to be more poised in that situation,” Macdonald said. “But, it goes both ways. If the guys didn’t care and they weren’t upset about it, then you get a host of other issues. I’d rather be living in this where you’d rather tell them ‘whoa!’ than ‘go!’

“Derick and I talked...and Derick was great. He’s more upset with himself about the penalty than the interaction with Jarran.

“And, onward we go.”