After Justin Reid arrives at the Caesars Superdome for this Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers, he will go through the normal pro football player checklist.
He will get into his New Orleans Saints gear, take the field and go through his warmup routine. He’ll head back to the locker room and take one final spin through his mental warmup, watching film of his opponent and walking through the game plan in his mind.
And then, before he walks through the tunnel for team introductions, he will shut all that off, pull out his cell phone and play a game of chess.
“It takes my mind off of the game so that I can relax and not get too hyped up before the game,” Reid said. “And then when it's time to go outside, I can just lock right back in and play the game.”
The Saints signed Reid to a three-year, $31.5 million contract this offseason. They signed him because he’s a difference-making athlete with a championship pedigree, and because safeties play a crucial role in defensive coordinator Brandon Staley’s scheme. But they also signed him because he is a problem solver who can sort out offensive complexity as it is unfolding in front of him.
As if the field was a … well, you probably get the idea.
“What's fun for me is, based on the setup — you can call it formation, whatever — of the chess board, you can kind of anticipate what your opponent is trying to do, right?” Reid said. “It's like, ‘OK, they went with this opening,’ whether it's a Sicilian or it's a Scotch or whatever … this is what their game plan typically is, right? So you can act accordingly.
“You're going to continue to move with your game plan, but you're also going to do some in-between moves to make sure that you got whatever they're trying to do, you got that protected and taken care of. Football is the same way.”
Most of the time, Reid plays chess on his phone. He said he plays anywhere from 10 to 30 games per day, sometimes two and sometimes 10-minute matches. But he’ll keep things analog, too: He keeps a chess board in his locker at the Saints facility for when any teammates want to play.
He’d welcome the challenge: The main reason Reid got into chess in the first place, beyond being inspired by the TV show “The Queen’s Gambit,” was because he was whooped by his former Texans teammate Phillip Gaines in the locker room.
Since, Reid has taken lessons from American chess master James Canty III, and his own rating is about 1,500, which puts him roughly in the 75th percentile among competitive players.
What does chess have to do with football? Knights and rooks don’t weigh 300 pounds and don't move at you with vicious intent. But there is a correlation. At their cores, chess and football both involve analyzing what is happening in real time and predicting likely future outcomes so you can put yourself in advantageous positions.
In that sense, Staley described Reid as a “multiplier” on the field.
“When you get a safety that can do the things that Justin can do, it just enhances everybody’s ability on your defense,” Staley said. “He’s one of those rare impact players as a safety who doesn’t have to just impact the game physically. He can impact the game mentally. And I think he’s allowed us to play a lot of high-level football because of his experiences.”
That will come in handy this week and beyond after the Saints lost the other half of their starting safety tandem, Julian Blackmon, to what is likely a season-ending shoulder injury. Reid will now line up alongside rookie Jonas Sanker in the defensive backfield.
Reid has been in Sanker’s position before. When Reid was a rookie with the Houston Texans in 2018, he also was thrust into the starting lineup for a Week 2 game because of an injury in the Houston secondary.
He understands that he’s going to have to be there to help Sanker adjust to the pro game, because that’s part of the reason the Saints brought him here in the first place. And his advice for the rookie is simple.
“On the first play, try and hit somebody as hard as you can to settle yourself in; then after that, just go play ball,” Reid said.
Of course, the advice will go a little deeper than that.
Defensive pass game coordinator Terry Joseph is coaching in the NFL for the first time this season after a long career in the college ranks. Having someone like Reid around has eased his transition to the pro game. Reid, Joseph said, always seems to try and sneak in a Level 5 question during a Level 2 coaching point.
That matters on Sundays. Football is a dynamic game. Offensive play-callers are constantly trying to put defenders in conflict, where the wrong decision will open an avenue for a big play. In Reid, Joseph believes the Saints have someone comfortable making “a battlefield decision with confidence.”
It’s no mystery to Joseph that all the defenses Reid has been a part of have improved after he got there.
“The work’s never done, because it’s like, ‘What if?’” Joseph said. “He likes to tackle all those different scenarios. He doesn’t want you to give him the answer, but give (him) the parameters (he) can work in if it does happen. As a coach, you love that.”
Before the game Sunday, Reid will sit at his locker and quiet his mind with a game of strategy. He will see potential outcomes as they're unfolding and take the necessary steps to cut them off. And then he'll don his helmet, run through the tunnel and look to do a version of the same thing on the field.