Nikko Reed<\/a> has turned into a playmaker.<\/p>\n“Derwin [James] said it right, Derwin said he’s a baller,” Harbaugh said. “Really happy for his success tonight.”<\/p>\n
Reed, an undrafted free agent out of Oregon, got the takeaway party started early with a first-quarter interception on third-and-9 that he returned 60 yards inside the red zone.<\/p>\n
“Man, it felt great. First NFL game as a rookie, third down, money down,” Reed said. “I felt the route, knew it and just went. Seen the ball, grabbed it and went.<\/p>\n
“I read it and I felt like he was going to do that. As soon as I seen him break out, jumped under it and I saw the ball,” Reed added. “I’m always hoping to score, but I was thinking about it too much. I should have scored.”<\/p>\n
Reed has impressed from Day 1 of camp, but what might be more impressive is that Harbaugh said Thursday that he’s been working through something physically but has still managed to produce.<\/p>\n
“To Nikko’s credit, there’s a lot of guys who might not be working through something, he’s been working through stuff and still playing good,” Harbaugh said. “That bodes well. You start thinking about him as a real football player.”<\/p>\n
Reed shrugged off the praise like a veteran.<\/p>\n
“You got to be grateful. Even though I’m hurt, I’m still able to move, still able to play football,” Reed said. “I got to give it my all even though I’m battling through stuff.”<\/p>\n
He later added: “Give it all I got. Control what I can control, because if I do that then I can’t say otherwise. I can’t have any regrets.”<\/p>\n
Reed said postgame that every single defensive back on the roster has helped him adjust to the NFL and welcomed him with open arms.<\/p>\n
He’s seized the opportunity and ran with it, and now hops to keep thriving in order to cement a spot on the roster.<\/p>\n
“Of course I want to make the 53[-man roster], but I like to live in the moment,” Reed said. “I just take it one day at a time, one foot in front of another. I got to do everything I got to do to make that team, but I got to get through the day first.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3. Nikko Reed shows resolve Whether it’s practice or the first preseason game, Nikko Reed has turned into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[37,3460,146,113,2506,7,34,38,147,49594,6,3818,2721],"class_list":{"0":"post-289914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-app-homepage","9":"tag-articles-5-takeaways","10":"tag-detroit","11":"tag-detroit-lions","12":"tag-detroitlions","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-homepage-cp","15":"tag-homepage-headlines","16":"tag-lions","17":"tag-los-angeles-chargers-at-detroit-lions-2025-pre-0","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-nikko-reed","20":"tag-trey-lance"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115032458936066532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}