The San Francisco 49ers have repeatedly said they are always open to finding talent upgrades, but it seems unlikely Eric Reid will be part of that. Head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked on Tuesday about earlier reports the 49ers would have been interested in Reid on a league minimum deal.
Shanahan acknowledged it would be great to have a good player on a league minimum deal, but he didn’t think that’s what Reid would want.
“Yeah, I think I said what I said then and I’ll say it forever. If any really good player wants to come in here on a minimum deal and have a good player to be a backup, that’d be unbelievable. I don’t think that’s what Eric wants. I told you the reason we decided to go that direction is because we made a tough decision, but we had to do it. We went with [Jaquiski] Tartt. We thought that was the right way to go. You can’t give a lot of money to backups, and that’s what he would be if he came here. But, I like Eric. Eric is a good player, he’s a good person. That’d be great if we could add him to that role. I don’t think he would be that interested in it.”
The safety market has been depressed this offseason, but it has still seemed fishy to see Reid on the sideline without a team halfway through the preseason. We’ve seen some inferior safeties get sniffs that Reid likely should have received. The most recent was with the Tennessee Titans deciding a delayed flight for Reid and Kenny Vaccaro generating too much interest meant they had to pass on the former 49er. I’m skeptical of the Titans’ reasoning, but it’s not going to change anything.
The NFL season starts two weeks from Thursday, and it seems highly unlikely Reid ends up on a roster by then. And given what we saw happen to Colin Kaepernick and Reid’s own outspoken nature, I don’t expect to see Reid on an NFL roster moving forward. We might hear reports of him getting a call or a visit, but I think Reid is going to end up in the same camp as Kap.
I don’t think there will be sufficient evidence to prove collusion, but it’s very much in the “I’m not saying, I‘m just saying” camp. Yes, there are always a lot of issues impacting things, but generally speaking, we know what the league is doing with guys like Reid and Kap. To say otherwise is naive, or worse.