In my last story, I covered Carlton Davis III and his future with the Lions. Only a few days later, he was taken by the New England Patriots on an expensive 3-year 60 million dollar contract. As expected, the Lions were never willing to pay the entirety of their projected cap space on a corner that could never play a full season. So while Carlton Davis will be rolling in his bands, the Lions went the cheaper way and found someone who could prove to be just as good, and that is DJ Reed.
Not to be confused with DJ Reader, who is a unit already on the Detroit Lions Defensive Line, DJ Reed is a corner who has spent the last 3 seasons with the New York Jets. He had a two-year stint with the Seattle Seahawks from 2020-2021, and he started his career with the San Fransico 49ers in 2018-2019.
Drafted by the 49ers in round 5, at pick 142 of the 2018 NFL Draft, Reed didn’t instantly produce high stats and looked pretty average. Through 31 games played with the 49ers, he was able to put together 54 total tackles, 1 sack, 2 forced fumbles with one recovered, and no interceptions. And he had a low of 2 pass deflections.
With the Seahawks, he stepped up his game, and through 24 games played (missed a handful due to injury), he put up a total of 140 tackles, 2 fumble recoveries, 4 interceptions, and 16 pass deflections, all a huge step-up compared to his early years. And with the Jets, he stayed consistent. Through 3 years and 46 games played, Reed accomplished 220 total tackles, 1 sack, 2 forced fumbles 2 interceptions, and 22 pass deflections.
All of these combined stats total to 7 years, 101 games played, 414 total tackles, 2 sacks, 4 forced fumbles with 3 recovered, 6 interceptions, and 50 pass deflections. And all of this was good enough for Detroit to give him a 3-year, 25-million-dollar contract. And possibly the best part about Reed is his availability to stay healthy, unlike Carlton Davis, who has never played 1 full season in 7 years.
In all likeliness, Reed will start for the Lions and hopefully start a chain of good corners to come. With only 25 million dollars going towards this signing, the Lions save over 35 million dollars by going for Reed instead of Davis. Reed has already expressed pride and excitement in his move to Motor City, and most, if not all Lions fans are intrigued to see how Reed performs for the Lions in the next 3 years.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/player/stats/_/id/3139387/dj-reed
