Former Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed built his reputation on delivering some of the hardest hits in NFL history. But recently, instead of targeting an opponent on the field, Reed directed his frustration toward a post made by the White House. The official X account of the White House recently shared a video featuring a montage of some of football’s most brutal hits, which included a well-known tackle from Reed’s NFL career. But the Ravens legend quickly took to social media to express his objection to it.

“I do not approve this message,” Ed Reed wrote in an X post on March 8.

Ed Reed posted the message while quoting sports commentator Ben Jacobs, who had reshared the White House video while tagging the safety and his Ravens teammate, Ray Lewis.

“The White House is using @raylewis and @TwentyER in hype videos about the Iran War,” Jacobs wrote in the caption of his X post.

Ed Reed, of course, was known throughout his NFL career for his physical style of play as he frequently delivered punishing hits to receivers coming across the middle of the field. Reed’s aggressive approach even led to league discipline at times. In 2012, the NFL fined Ed Reed $21,000 for a hit on New England Patriots receiver Deion Branch. Later that same year, Reed received another $50,000 fine for a hit on former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Emmanuel Sanders. 

But now, the issue does not appear to be Reed’s tackle but rather that the Hall of Famer wanted to distance himself from how the footage of his hit was used, especially given the broader context surrounding the video. The White House post arrived shortly after the official account of U.S. Homeland Security shared footage of military strikes connected to President Donald Trump’s operations in the Middle East. The White House then also posted another video celebrating baseball.

While the baseball montage carried the caption “Pure American dominance,” the football video shared by the White House carried a much simpler label: “Touchdown.”

However, the editing made the football clip far more dramatic than a typical sports highlight reel. The football post used AC/DC’s song ‘Thunderstruck’ while mixing old football highlights with the U.S. government’s military strike footage marked “Unclassified.”

Between football highlights, the video showed missiles striking buildings, with explosions timed to the beat of the music. As the song played, the clip alternated between military footage and violent hits in football games, including a brutal tackle delivered by Ed Reed and another by Ray Lewis.

The montage wasn’t limited to Reed, also featuring a notorious hit by former Steeler Ryan Clark and clips from college games, broadening the scope of the video’s controversial use of football violence. The clip also featured highlights from two college football games, showing big hits involving players from Wisconsin, Nebraska, Florida, and Oklahoma.

Major sports leagues, including the NFL, typically require express written permission before anyone can use their broadcast highlights. But so far, the NFL has not commented on whether the White House received approval or advance notice before posting the video with their highlights. 

Regardless of the legal questions, Ed Reed’s reaction made it clear that he was not comfortable with his highlights being used for political messaging about military conflict. But the White House’s brutal hits montage could also reflect a broader message about the physical nature of football. Could it even be a subtle push from Donald Trump himself for the game to return to its more violent past?

Donald Trump has criticized the NFL’s push for player safety

President Trump has paid a lot of attention to the NFL during his presidency, and that appears to have continued even during the conflict in the Middle East. Trump has openly criticized the NFL’s recent efforts to make football safer for players and called for more brutal hits.

One of the NFL’s biggest safety changes was the new kickoff format, designed to slow players down and reduce the violent, full-speed collisions that defined the play for decades. Under the hybrid kickoff rule, the ball is still kicked from the 35-yard line during the NFL games, but the players on the kicking team must remain at the 40-yard line until the ball hits the ground or is touched by a returner inside the 20.

Earlier, players sprinted down the field at full speed, often leading to massive collisions between the two teams in many NFL matchups. Still, Donald Trump has criticized the new kickoff rule just days after he became the first sitting U.S. president to attend a regular-season NFL game in nearly 50 years.

“I hate the kickoff in football,” Donald Trump said during his interview on the Pat McAfee Show last year. “I think it’s so terrible. And I think it’s so demeaning. I think it hurts the game, it hurts the pageantry. I’ve told that to Roger Goodell. And I don’t think it’s any safer. I mean, you still have guys crashing into each other.”

“It’s the opposite of what the game is – the ball is in the air, nobody’s moving,” Trump added. “It’s supposed to be when the ball is in the air, when the ball is played, you’re supposed to be moving. The pageantry of the game is so badly hurt.”

The NFL introduced the hybrid kickoff rule to reduce those dangerous impacts while still encouraging more kickoff returns. According to NFL data, those changes to the rules produced measurable results in the very first season they were implemented, as head injuries during kickoffs dropped by nearly 43%. Even so, Donald Trump has criticized the rule almost since it was introduced, noting that it hurts the spectacle of the game. 

While the NFL continues to defend its safety-focused rule changes with data, the White House’s video, and Trump’s own words, suggest a desire for a more brutal game, a vision that legends like Ed Reed are now publicly rejecting being a part of.