Second and third-year NFL players ready to break out in 2019

#16 Justin Reid

I realize that I have a lot of players from last year’s draft, probably because I remember them a little better but also because it was a damn good class and I saw them really flash as rookies. Reid was my fourth-highest graded safety and a mid-second round pick for me back in April of 2018. I thought he quietly had a really strong rookie campaign with 88 tackles, a fumble forced, two recovered and three interceptions.

Reid already played over 900 snaps on the season, as it allowed the Texans to keep Kareem Jackson in the slot after starting him out at strong safety. I think the possibility of pairing him up with free agent safety Tashaun Gipson made Tyrann Mathieu and Kareem Jackson expendable after they were raving about the leadership those guys presented.

The brother of Panthers safety Eric Reid, Justin become one of my favorite prospects to watch because of the versatility he brought to the table at Stanford and how he always showed up around the ball. In his first year in Houston, he actually played a lot of deep coverage, but I could see them using him in more ways, helping out as an extra box defender and just being interchangeable with their safeties, especially since he was one of the most dependable tacklers among all DBs.

Reid already made some incredible plays in year one, when you look at 101-yard pick-six against the Redskins in a close game or in their matchup versus the Browns, when fellow rookie Antonio Callaway thought he was going in for an easy walk-in touchdown, but Reid came from behind to punch the ball out inside the five. The Texans will face a much more challenging slate of quarterback in 2019, which could lead to valuable lessons for the second-year man, but he is a playmaker, who can really fill the stat sheet. If that pass rush can continue to get better, there might be even more chances to break on the ball on the back-end.

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Other names:

D’Onta Foreman

Kalen Ballage

Anthony Miller

James Washington

D.J. Moore & Curtis Samuel

Chris Herndon IV

Brian O‘Neill

Wyatt Teller

Frank Ragnow

Derek Barnett & Josh Sweat

Lorenzo Carter

Nathan Shepherd

Vita Vea

Jarrad Davis

Fabian Moreau

Ronnie Harrison