Ed's impact on recruiting is he lends credibility & respectability to the staff overall.
A lot of kids grew up watching Ed Reed in the NFL & are aware of how great he is, I mean he's the greatest Safety ever & is a HOF'er so that goes without saying.
What his actual job is, is he serves all purposes, wherever he's needed & he brings his greatness to help out. He does help in recruiting, he does & can communicate with recruits, he watches film on prospects & gives his input on their evaluation in concert with how the staff feels about the prospect.
He'll also serve as a help to the Defense & team overall on a weekly basis in terms of film preparation helping the Safeties & Defense in general by lending his vast knowledge of the game & experience in how to dissect an opponents offense, what tendencies to look for in formations, play calls, personnel & play sequences. He'll give our guys some tricks of the trade in how to bait QB's & disguise coverages in the Defensive backfield & show them how to be better prepared in film study etc..
What his job is, is to just be Ed Reed & having his Greatness be apart of the program elevates what we're trying to do, he also serves as a Big brother to the guys on the team, someone who's been where they have & has the wisdom & experience to help guide them through being a Hurricane.
He deserved credit for how we've been recruiting no doubt, but when people try to give him all the credit that's just inaccurate. The HC, position coaches & support staff deserve the bulk of the credit when it comes to recruiting, because they are the ones on the front lines who are on the phone everyday with these kids & they have the established relationships with the recruits & their family, because Manny & Company don't just recruit the kid, they recruit the parents too.
I can guarantee you Ed Reed is not on the phone Monday through Sunday with James Williams & Kam Kinchens like Banda is. Now, does a FaceTime call from Reed help, **** the fúck yeah it does, but there's more groundwork that has to happen to get a commit from kids like that just one phone call & that's where people who refuse to give credit to Banda or Stroud etc miss the boat.
Yes Ed Reed helps, but don't think he's literally the only reason we're landing Blue chip high level recruits. That's just dumb.