Jerrick
Reed.
Jerrick
Reed.
New Mexico
"A junior-college safety who read quarterbacks better than the Mountain West could hide the ball from him, and who tackled like the frame was somebody else's problem — the special teams temperament is what got him drafted."Pre-draft read
Reed lined up as New Mexico's do-everything safety in a 3-3-5, rotating between deep middle, split-field halves, the box and the slot over the tight end. His calling card is anticipation: he reads the quarterback's shoulders from depth, triggers before the throw arrives and closes ground fast, which is how a 5-9 defender collected seven career interceptions.
The second trait is contact willingness. He fills downhill against the run, meets pulling guards instead of running around them, and lives on kick and punt coverage. Athletically he is a genuine plus for the level, and the separator is that the range and the toughness arrive in the same player even though the frame gives away size on contact.
Split-safety zone structure (Cover-2 and quarters) that lets him play with vision on the quarterback rather than matching man-to-man from a leverage disadvantage.
Year 1: four-phase special teams core with dime-safety emergency value. Ceiling: third safety in a two-high defense who plays 250-350 sub-package snaps.
A single-high, box-heavy front that asks him to be the eighth man in the run fit and stack tight ends on down blocks every snap.
His value lives where he can see the throw develop; asking him to win with mass instead of eyes erases the pick.
Jerrick Reed II Highlights - “Stick By My Side”
Career highlight reel showing the range from the deep middle, the interceptions and the downhill run fits that defined his New Mexico tape.
2019 Lobo Football - Jerrick Reed II
Official program feature from his first year in Albuquerque, including the pick-six that opened the win over New Mexico State.
Jerrick Reed Pass Breakup against Utah State
Single-rep look at the trigger and closing burst on a throw in front of him — the anticipation trait in isolation.
Reed is the profile scouts build careers on finding: a lightly recruited Mississippi defensive back who spent a year at Northwest Mississippi Community College, took the only Group of Five scholarship offered and became a four-year fixture in Albuquerque. He is a safety by instinct rather than by measurement, comfortable calling the back end and completely unbothered by the physical part of the job.
The production shape is unusual. He led the Mountain West in interceptions with four in the shortened 2020 season and earned first-team all-conference honors, then led the Lobos in tackles in each of his last two years — 89 in 2021, 95 in 2022 — while breaking up eleven passes as a super senior. That is rare ball production and volume tackling from one defensive back. The flag was the tackling itself: too many arm attempts and inconsistent angles, with a missed-tackle rate scouts kept circling on his 2022 tape.
Boards had him as a late Day 3 name — the kind of player the league likes for four core special teams jobs first and sub-package snaps later. Kansas City and Seattle both brought him in on top-30 visits, and Seattle took him at 198 as the only safety it drafted, betting instincts and coverage range would outrun the size concerns.
- 01
Anticipation from depth
Reads the quarterback's eyes and shoulder turn out of the deep middle, triggers before the ball leaves the hand and turns routine coverage into ball production.
- 02
Ball production
Seven career interceptions and 21 passes broken up, including a four-interception 2020 that led the Mountain West and earned first-team all-conference recognition.
- 03
Alignment versatility
Played deep middle, split-field halves, box and slot in New Mexico's 3-3-5, with real reps covering tight ends and slot receivers out of nickel and dime.
- 04
Special teams temperament
A punt and kick coverage regular who seeks contact in space; that is the trait that gets a late sixth-rounder a helmet on Sundays.
- 05
Testing athleticism
A reported sub-4.45 forty and a 38-inch vertical at New Mexico's pro day, numbers that would have placed near the top of the safety group at the combine.
- 01
Tackling reliability
Too many arm attempts and inconsistent pursuit angles; PFF charted 16 missed tackles and a 15.6 percent miss rate on his final college season.
- 02
Play strength at size
At 5-9 and under 200 pounds he gets moved by tight ends and pulling linemen at the point of attack, and stacking blocks in the alley is a real chore.
- 03
Freelancing risk
The instincts that create interceptions also pull him off assignment; he will jump a route concept and leave the structure behind him exposed.
- 04
Level of competition
Mountain West passing games rarely tested him with NFL route detail or the tight-window throws he will see against pro quarterbacks.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | New Mexico | 10 | 51 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2020 | New Mexico | 7 | 33 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0 |
| 2021 | New Mexico | 12 | 89 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| 2022 | New Mexico | 12 | 95 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 2 |
| Career | — | 41 | 268 | 0 | 7 | 21 | 0 |
2020-22 verified line by line at cfbstats.com (tackles, TFL, interceptions, passes broken up, forced fumbles, fumble returns). cfbstats does not host a 2019 page for him, so that row comes from the official New Mexico bio (10 games, 51 tackles, 3.0 TFL, 1 interception returned 43 yards for a touchdown, 1 pass breakup); solo/assist splits, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries for 2019 are unpublished and carry null rather than zero. Northwest Mississippi CC in 2018 is junior college and is not an NCAA season, so no row exists. No source read credits him with a college sack in any season and cfbstats publishes no sack table for him, so sacks carry null rather than zero. Documented discrepancies: the Seahawks' draft-day writeup cites 266 career tackles where the four verified seasons sum to 268; the UNM bio credits seven passes broken up in 2021 against cfbstats' six; contemporary reporting cites ten 2022 breakups against cfbstats' eleven. Career forced fumbles and fumble recoveries stay null because 2019 is unverified for both.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Same Seattle mold: short, versatile Day 3 defensive back whose NFL job is coverage units first and sub-package snaps second.
Undersized, contact-seeking safety who carved out a starting role by being reliable in split coverage and violent in the run game.
Athletic Seahawks safety whose career was defined by a knee injury before the defensive role ever solidified.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Seattle used him exactly as advertised. He made the 53 as a rookie, played ten games almost entirely on coverage units and was voted to the PFWA All-Rookie team for that work before tearing an ACL in punt coverage against the Rams in November 2023. The knee cost him most of 2024 — he opened the season on PUP and was activated in late October, appearing in only five games — and 2025 became a churn year: five games in Seattle before he was waived in November to clear a roster spot for the Rashid Shaheed trade, then a waiver claim by Tennessee, where he played three games and made his first NFL start. The Titans re-signed him to a one-year deal in March 2026, and he is on their practice squad now.
In hindsight the pick was a reasonable sixth-round outcome rather than a hit. Seattle got a rookie-year core special teamer and an All-Rookie nod for the price of a compensatory-range selection, which is what that slot is for, and the ACL landed at the worst possible moment for a player whose whole case rested on movement in space. What never developed was the sub-package defensive role — the size and tackling flags that defined the eval never got answered because the snaps to answer them stopped coming. He is still in the league four years later, still on a coverage-unit contract, which is roughly the honest median result for pick 198.