Overview

Position: S

College: Penn State

Class: Senior

Age: 22

 

Measurables

Height: 5’11 5/8”

Weight: 211 lbs.

Arm length: 30 3/8”

Hand size: 9”

 

Athletic testing

40-yard dash: 4.49 sec.

10-yard split: 1.51 sec.

Vertical jump: 33.5”

Broad jump: N/A

Bench press: 19 reps

3-cone drill: N/A

Short shuttle: N/A

 

Strengths

Ideal overall size. Excellent acceleration. Very good speed. Very versatile with experience filling a variety of roles from play to play. Terrific pre-snap intelligence and play recognition. Calls things out before the play. Exceptional overall reaction time. Great aggressiveness in run support playing inside the box. Tremendous quickness into the backfield. Extremely effective finisher when able to attack. Will disengage and make a square-up tackle. High effort and quickness to prevent blockers from attaching. Does an outstanding job filling in run support as a deep safety or backside defender. Great in downhill pursuit. Excellent as a backside run blitzer. Stays in front of and looks to wrap bigger ball-carriers. Terrific pursuit towards the sideline on quarterback runs. Effective chopping down opponents in space. Good discipline as the last line of defense. Fast with excellent timing as a blitzer. Very quick to diagnose screens. Excellent fluidity in the backpedal as a deep zone defender. Great accuracy poking the ball away on downfield throws. Delivers big hits to break up throws at the catch point. Impressive awareness and fluidity to avoid traffic covering routes across the field. Very good ball skills. Ranges towards the sideline and tracks the ball very well in the air. Does a nice job positioning himself for overthrows as a deep safety. Reads the quarterback’s eyes in robber coverage.

 

Weaknesses

Needs to be more controlled coming from the side as a tackler. Slightly overruns the ball while breaking down too often. Would like to see better pursuit hustle towards the ball when away from the action. Could be better as a head-on tackler when runners have a head of steam. Ohio State running backs Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson tried running through him (2024). Laid out by Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson on a designed quarterback run for a touchdown (2024). Free roams rather than reading and reacting in intermediate zone coverage. Would like to see him focus on diagnosing routes and getting into better position as a zone defender. Needs to be better anticipating and reacting to the deep ball down the sideline as a single-high safety. Can be a step delayed reacting to routes in man coverage. Needs to avoid falling a step behind covering downfield routes.

 

NFL comparison

Brandon Jones

 

Conclusion

Overall, Reed is a versatile, intelligent safety with great effectiveness in run support and traits to develop in coverage. Trying to stick more to receivers as a zone defender—whether a change in scheme or general focus is needed—should allow Reed to be more consistently near the ball defending the pass.

 

Big Board ranking: #89 | Positional ranking: #6