Malik Reed is cook­ing. Lit­er­al­ly and figuratively.

The sec­ond-year Bron­cos out­side line­backer got com­fort­able in the kitchen since coro­n­avirus hit with the help of his wife, Cidavia, as a pan­dem­ic sil­ver lin­ing. You might be sur­prised by what Reed pulls from the oven.

“We tried our hand at cook­ing dif­fer­ent dish­es and try­ing new things, pas­tries and stuff like that,” Reed said. “It’s some­thing we’ve def­i­nite­ly enjoyed.”

Count those hand-craft­ed meals as a wel­comed reward for his day job — ter­ror­iz­ing quar­ter­backs. Reed, nick­named “Dream Killer” by team­mates last sea­son, has lived up to his rep­u­ta­tion ahead of Denver’s Sun­day home game against New Orleans. Reed’s 6.5 sacks are tied for a team-high over 10 games this season.

“I’m blessed to be in this posi­tion,” Reed said. “It was being ready for the oppor­tu­ni­ty when­ev­er it pre­sent­ed itself.”

The for­mu­la for Reed’s depth chart ascen­sion mir­rors his break­out rook­ie sea­son. In 2019, Reed filled the gap left by Bradley Chubb’s ACL tear absence and start­ed eight games with had a pair of sacks. In 2020, sea­son-end­ing surgery for Von Miller once again opened the door.

How­ev­er, Reed wasn’t guar­an­teed a star­ring role. Through the first four games, he didn’t reg­is­ter a sin­gle quar­ter­back “dis­rup­tion” — sacks, knock­downs or pres­sures — per The Den­ver Post’s game chart­ing. Bron­cos out­side line­backer Jere­mi­ah Attaochu earned more snaps.

Every­thing changed in Week 4 when Attaochu sus­tained a leg injury. Reed became a starter and quick­ly devel­oped into the Bron­cos’ most effec­tive pass rush­er. Over his past six games, Reed record­ed 14.5 quar­ter­back dis­rup­tions, and it’s not the only facet of his game on the rise.

“Play­ing out­side line­backer, he does get to rush a lit­tle bit in our nick­el and dime fronts. He improved his run play and he has improved his pass rush play,” coach Vic Fan­gio said. “I think (out­side line­back­ers coach) John Pagano has done a good job with him in advanc­ing him in his sec­ond year. You’re always hop­ing for a big jump from year one to year two. He got to play a lot due to Bradley’s injury last year and now he’s get­ting to play a lot this year due to Von’s injury.

“He’s tak­en full advan­tage of it. He’s a very con­sci­en­tious play­er. He plays hard and you like to see good things hap­pen to those types of people.”

Reed isn’t one to boast and believes his foot­ball suc­cess is deeply root­ed in his Chris­t­ian faith.

“I look at it as being a com­plete play­er and doing every­thing well,” Reed said. “Whether that’s play­ing the run, rush­ing the pass­er, or being able to drop into cov­er­age a lit­tle bit, too. I feel like doing all those things well is how my game has con­tin­ued to grow and develop.”