Georgia safety J.R. Reed, the son of former NFL receiver Jake Reed, decided not to leave school early. And one specific reason stands out.
“[I]t’d be best for me to come back for this team and get us to win a championship,” J.R. Reed said at Georgia’s Pro Day workout on Wednesday, via Chip Towers of DawgNation.com.
“It’s always been my goal since I came here to win a national championship,” Reed said. “Coach Smart told me that’s what he wants this team to be. I told him I want to be a part of a championship team. So my goals haven’t really changed. That championship thing is always on your list, every time you play.”
It was far from a no-brainer for Reed, whose family consulted with a number of NFL executives before choosing a path.
“It was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve made, besides transferring out of the University of Tulsa,” Reed said. “It just took a lot of praying and marking things down and doing logistics and talking it over with my parents. After weeks and maybe a month going in — because we thought about it before — we decided it’d probably be best for me to come back.”
Every player has to make his own decision regarding whether to leave school early, but if/when the NFL is ready for a player, the player needs to engage in the analysis that leads to the question of whether he’s ready to make the jump. For Reed, the decision was to stick around for one more season of unpaid play.