Joe
Reed.
Joe
Reed.
Virginia· 6'0"· 224 lb· 4.47s 40
"One of the ten most productive kick returners in the history of college football, and a receiver whose 77-catch senior year averaged under nine yards a grab."Pre-draft read
Reed is a thick, downhill receiver who plays like a running back with hands. Virginia lined him up in the slot, on jet motion and in the backfield, and the constant was contact balance: he catches the ball moving forward, lowers his pads and turns short throws into first downs. Screens, tunnels and manufactured touches were the core of his role as a senior.
The separator is kick returning. He reads blocking fronts fast, plants once and hits the crease at full speed, which is how he became one of the most productive returners in college football history. He is a build-up athlete rather than a sudden one, better on horizontal concepts than on a route tree, and his best football comes with the ball already in his hands.
Motion-heavy offense that manufactures touches, paired with a special teams unit that wants a true kick return starter
Year 1 starting kick returner and gadget touch package; ceiling is a fourth receiver who also owns the return job
A vertical isolation offense that asks its receivers to beat press man on the boundary and win the ball above the rim
His value is tied to the health of the return game; rule changes that suppress kickoffs erase most of his roster case.
Virginia Joe Reed Returns Kickoff 100 Yards For A Touchdown
The school-record-tying 100-yard return against William and Mary that defined his senior year.
Virginia Joe Reed Houses A 95-YD Kickoff Return
Vision and one-cut acceleration on a 95-yard kick return score.
Joe Reed UVA WR 2019 Highlights
Senior receiving reel showing the screen and jet-motion role and his run-after-catch balance.
Reed is an all-purpose weapon whose evaluation splits cleanly in two. As a receiver he is a volume slot and gadget piece: 129 career catches for 1,465 yards and 16 touchdowns, with 77 of those receptions coming in his final season at just 8.8 yards a catch. That average tells the story. Virginia used him on screens and quick throws and let his size and balance do the rest, rather than asking him to win downfield against man coverage.
As a returner he is close to elite. He holds the Virginia records for career kick return yardage, 3,042, and kick return touchdowns, five, and he led the FBS with a 33.2 average as a senior. He won the Jet Award, was a consensus first-team All-America return man and finished as a Paul Hornung Award finalist. He also ran a 4.47 at the combine at 224 pounds, which explains how he outruns angles once he clears the first wave.
The board read him as a Day 3 specialist with offensive upside, the kind of pick that has to make the roster on teams value first. Los Angeles took him at 151 to fix a return game and hoped the manufactured-touch role would grow. That is a reasonable price for a first-team All-America returner, provided the receiver development follows.
- 01
Return production
Holds the Virginia records with 3,042 career kick return yards and five kick return touchdowns, and led the FBS with a 33.2 average as a senior.
- 02
Contact balance
At 224 pounds he catches the ball moving downhill and runs through arm tackles, which is why screens and tunnels were a staple of his usage.
- 03
Long speed for the frame
Ran 4.47 at the combine at his listed draft weight, enough to finish runs once he clears the first two levels of coverage.
- 04
Manufactured-touch versatility
Virginia used him in the slot, on jet motion and out of the backfield, giving a coordinator several ways to get him the ball.
- 05
Decorated resume
Jet Award winner, consensus first-team All-America returner, first-team All-ACC as both a specialist and an all-purpose player in 2019.
- 01
Route tree
A volume senior season at 8.8 yards a catch reflects a role built on quick throws, not a receiver who wins on option routes or downfield stems.
- 02
Separation quickness
A build-up athlete who does not create instant space at the line, which limits him against press man coverage on the outside.
- 03
Ball skills in traffic
Contested-catch production was modest for his size, and he is more dangerous after the catch than attacking the ball in the air.
- 04
Roster math
A returner who does not contribute on offense is a fragile roster profile, particularly with kickoff returns declining league-wide.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.47sp50
- Vertical
- 38inp50
- Broad jump
- 123inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 21repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Virginia | — | 4 | 77 | 0 |
| 2017 | Virginia | 12 | 23 | 244 | 2 |
| 2018 | Virginia | 13 | 25 | 465 | 7 |
| 2019 | Virginia | 13 | 77 | 679 | 7 |
| Career | — | 38 | 129 | 1465 | 16 |
Kick returns: 678 yards in 2016, 861 and two scores in 2017, 707 and one score in 2018, 796 and two scores in 2019 for a school-record 3,042 career yards and five touchdowns. Games played totals differ across sources for 2016, so season and career games are left unset where unverified.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Roster-bubble returner whose offensive role never materialized.
Big-bodied return specialist who forced coordinators to invent offensive touches for him.
Productive college return man who bounced between practice squads in the NFL.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The rookie year was the whole career. Reed played eleven games for the Chargers in 2020, took 149 of his 176 snaps on special teams and returned 21 kicks for 435 yards, adding five carries for 29 yards and a rushing touchdown. He never caught a pass; his single target fell incomplete. Los Angeles waived him with a foot injury before the 2021 season and he spent that year on the practice squad. He was waived again in August 2022 after a strong preseason opener and returned to the practice squad. Chicago signed him to a futures deal in January 2023, released him injured in August and placed him on injured reserve, and he received no restricted free agent tender in March 2024.
In hindsight this is what happens when a specialist is not quite special enough to protect a roster spot. Reed was a legitimate college return weapon and the pick was defensible, but the NFL kickoff rules of that era shrank the return game just as he arrived, and he never developed the route detail to earn offensive snaps. Eleven games and one rushing touchdown is a miss, though at pick 151 the cost was low and the logic was sound.