Justin Reid

8 seasons — the box-safety who became a blitzer in Kansas City, then a leader in New Orleans.

Reid arrived in Houston as a deep safety and left it as KC's most versatile chess piece. His 2023 season in KC — 82 solo, 30 ast, 4.5 sacks, 8 QB hits, 7 PDs, 2 INTs — is the kind of all-three-levels box score most safeties never put together. He left for New Orleans on a 3-year deal in 2025 as a leadership signing for a rebuilding defense.

101-yard pick-six as a rookie — the longest INT-TD in Texans franchise history.

Week 7 of 2018, Reid stepped in front of an Alex Smith pass at the HOU 1-yard line and returned it 101 yards for a touchdown. Pre-snap to end-zone, that's a near-end-line-to-end-line score — still the longest interception return for a TD in Texans history.

The rookie season finished with 3 INTs, 87 combined tackles, 12 PDs — the kind of all-around debut that made him a building block for Houston before he eventually walked in free agency to KC.

2023 in KC: 4.5 sacks and 8 QB hits as a safety — a Super-Bowl-winning year on the stat sheet.

Spagnuolo unlocked Reid as a green-dot safety/blitzer. The 2023 ring year sits as Reid's career high in sacks (4.5), QB hits (8) and TFL (7) — a usage profile that is rare for a player listed as SS. The 2024 pendulum swing back to coverage (3 INTs, 10 PDs, 0.0 sacks) shows the schematic flexibility.

Across 3 KC seasons Reid played in three straight AFC Championships and earned two rings.

Career: 469 solo tackles, 13 INTs, 8.0 sacks — a true three-level safety.

The volume profile spans all three levels of the defense: more than 680 total tackles, 29 TFLs at the line, 8.0 career sacks as a rusher, and 70+ ball-disruption plays (INT + PD) in coverage. That's a rare distribution for a player who's never lined up as a true linebacker.

Pick-six in his first Saints season — took Kirk Cousins back to the house in Week 12.

In Week 12 of 2025, Reid picked Kirk Cousins intended for Kyle Pitts at the ATL 49 and returned it 49 yards for a touchdown — his 2nd career pick-six, 7 years after his rookie 101-yarder.

That play came in a season where the Saints' young defense leaned on Reid as the veteran organizer; he was active for 15 of NO's first 16 games and produced 6 PDs, 1 INT, 2 TFLs as the new green-dot safety.

Two-ring KC alum brought to NOLA on a 3-yr deal to anchor the rebuild.

Reid played in three straight AFC Championship games and won Super Bowls LVII and LVIII in his 3-year KC run. The Saints signed him in 2025 as the veteran voice for a defense full of mid-20s talent (Mathieu had retired, Lattimore was elsewhere). Stylistically he replaces a vocal communicator more than a single position — NO uses him at single-high, in the box, and as an occasional A-gap blitzer the same way KC did.