Justin Reid was nearly ready to switch sides.
Shortly after suffering a disheartening defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX, former Kansas City Chiefs safety Justin Reid admitted he was very close to joining them a few weeks later in free agency.
The New Orleans Saints have to be glad things didn't quite work out. Once the new league year began, the Saints worked quickly to get Reid to sign on the dotted line of a three-year deal that brought the Louisiana native home in the same way they got Tyrann Mathieu to do the same back in 2022.
As it turns out, the Eagles and Titans were also in the mix, per Reid's introductory press conference with the Saints. On a recent episode of Up & Adams, host Kay Adams asked Reid about a potential deal with the Eagles and inquired about how close he really came to landing in Philly. Reid sounded like things were nearly official—until they weren't.
"Pretty close, actually. Pretty close, just because me and the defensive back coach there have a really good relationship. The defensive system was the same defensive system that I ran at Stanford, so that whole big [Vic] Fangio system, I know it pretty well."
While the fit was good and the Eagles themselves were a big draw for the chance to join another annual contender, Philly just couldn't match the buying power of other franchises. As as they say, "Money talks."
"The conversations were pretty intense. The only drawback was they were just so limited in cap space that we couldn't make a deal that made sense. But the situation, the conversation was happening," said Reid.
Reid ended up landing a deal worth up to $31.5 million in free agency, so he has plenty of reasons to be happy in New Orleans. He also says he believes he can win just as much there in the Big Easy as he could have in Philly.
"I still believe we can still get that done in New Orleans. I mean, it never it never matters what what situation you jump into. We have so much firepower, so many weapons in Louisiana. And yeah, it feels like we're building like the all-star team ... We're just picking Louisiana's best and bringing them all home, and we're going to go and see what we can do."