Stuck drag

[cassidyta]

I managed to get a rather bad backlash yesterday. They type that can only happen when your lure it stuck to an item behind you. (In this cast the tip of my other rod) during the cast. I screwed with the birdsnest for about 5 minutes before accepting it was time to restring the reel. I tried the tighten the drag and reel technique, but it wouldn't even reel.
I restrung it this morning, and everything appears to be normal, but my drag won't loosen as much as it did previously. I can still get it to run some drag, but it takes a lot more force than before.
I have totally disassembled the reel to check for debris, but it looks clean.
The star is not misthreaded and the washers look fine.

Any ideas what I am missing?
It is a Johnny Morris Signature, 6 months old.