John
Reid.
John
Reid.
Penn St.· 5'10"· 187 lb· 4.49s 40
"A five-year Penn State starter, eleventh in school history with 37 passes defended, whose technique and recall were pro-ready and whose size and post-knee burst were not."Pre-draft read
Reid is a 5-10, 187-pound cornerback who wins with preparation and technique rather than length or top-end speed. He is disciplined in his footwork, keeps his eyes disciplined in zone, and plays routes he has already seen on tape, which is how he finished eleventh in Penn State history with 37 career passes defended.
His best work comes from off coverage in a match scheme, where he can read the quarterback and drive on the throw, and from the slot, where his change of direction lets him mirror option routes. He competes in run support despite the frame. The limits are physical: short, modest length, and a lost season to a knee injury that took some of his recovery burst. Bigger receivers box him out. The signature is instincts.
A zone-match defense that plays its nickel off the line and asks him to read the quarterback and drive rather than press and travel.
Year 1 fourth or fifth corner and special-teams contributor, with a ceiling as a reliable starting nickel in a zone-heavy scheme.
A press-man defense that asks corners to jam at the line and carry big outside receivers down the field.
2020 NFL Draft: Penn State Nittany Lions DB John Reid
Pre-draft profile of the technique, instincts and slot projection.
Penn State CB John Reid sophomore season 2016-17 highlights
His fourteen-start season on the Big Ten championship team, before the knee injury.
John Reid Intercepts Buffalo for Pick Six
The 36-yard pick-six against Buffalo in 2019, Penn State's first since 2016.
Reid came to Penn State from St. Joseph's Prep in Philadelphia and contributed straight away, playing thirteen games with two starts as a true freshman in 2015 and earning ESPN's Big Ten All-Freshman team. He then started all fourteen games in 2016 for the Big Ten championship team that went to the Rose Bowl.
Then he lost a year. A knee injury wiped out his 2017 season entirely, and the question afterward was whether the twitch would come back. He answered it over two more years as a starter, making 24 starts across 2018 and 2019 and finishing his senior season third on the team with 72 tackles, a pick-six against Buffalo, an interception against Idaho and his first career sack, plus two PFF Big Ten team of the week selections. He left ranked eleventh all-time at Penn State with 37 passes defended, on 30 breakups and seven interceptions, and was a three-time honorable mention All-Big Ten pick.
He also graduated in data sciences with internships at Intel and Blizzard, which was part of every scouting report because the football intelligence matched it. The board had him as a slot-only prospect: smart, technically clean, small, and one year removed from a torn knee. Houston took him at 141.
- 01
Coverage instincts
Eleventh all-time at Penn State with 37 passes defended, almost all of it earned by reading routes early rather than out-athleting receivers.
- 02
Footwork and technique
Clean, compact pedal and transitions with no wasted motion, the product of a five-year starter who studied obsessively.
- 03
Slot projection
Change of direction and route recognition that transfer directly to matching option routes inside on third down.
- 04
Zone discipline
Keeps his eyes in the right place and passes off routes correctly in match coverage, a rare trait in a Day 3 corner.
- 05
Football intelligence
A data sciences graduate with Intel and Blizzard internships whose recall of opponent tendencies shows up in his pre-snap positioning.
- 01
Size limitations
At 5-10 and 187 pounds with short arms, he is consistently outreached at the catch point by NFL boundary receivers.
- 02
Injury history
A knee injury cost him the entire 2017 season and left teams asking whether the pre-injury burst ever fully returned.
- 03
Long speed
Lacks the recovery gear to survive on an island outside, which restricts him to an inside role in most schemes.
- 04
Press strength
Cannot reroute bigger receivers at the line, so a defense that wants physical jam corners has no place for him.
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
- 4.49sp50
- Vertical
- 36.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 129inp50
- Three-cone
- 6.95sp50
- Shuttle
- 3.97sp50
- Bench
- 20repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Penn State | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | Penn State | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | Penn State | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Penn State | — | 72 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 27 | 125 | 1 | 7 | 37 | 0 |
Career totals of 125 tackles, seven interceptions and 37 passes defended (30 breakups) come from the Penn State athletics bio and his Wikipedia career summary; the school lists him eleventh all-time in passes defended. The 2019 line (13 starts, 72 tackles, a sack and two interceptions) is from the same sources. He started 24 games across 2018 and 2019 combined, so the 2018 start total is the remainder. He missed the entire 2017 season with a knee injury and that year is omitted rather than entered as zeros; per-season tackle and coverage splits for 2015, 2016 and 2018 were not published and are left empty.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A depth defensive back whose value is special teams and who never claims a defensive role.
The ceiling: a smart, undersized slot who starts for several years in a zone-match defense.
An intelligent small slot corner who cycles through practice squads and is out of the league inside four years.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Reid never found a home. He played fourteen games as a rookie in Houston in 2020, mostly on special teams with a handful of defensive snaps, and the Texans moved on after one season. Seattle claimed him and he spent 2021 and part of 2022 there as a depth corner, then bounced through Atlanta's practice squad, a stint with Tennessee, back to Atlanta, and a Minnesota practice squad deal in 2023.
Across his NFL career he recorded 30 total tackles and three pass deflections without ever establishing a rotational role. The evaluation was not wrong so much as it was optimistic about the margins: the intelligence and technique were exactly as advertised, but in the slot the NFL asks a corner to survive contact from 215-pound receivers and to recover when a double move wins, and the knee year had taken just enough off him to make both a problem. He is one of the more interesting people in the class and one of its less consequential football careers, which happens more often than the draft business likes to admit.