Reid f inally gets NFL job, but can he play?

Safety notable for his part in anthem protests

News and views from around the NFL, with Week 4 under

The Carolina Panthers signed safety Eric Reid on Thursday.

❚ NEWS: Deficient at the safety position, the Panthers reached a one-year deal with Reid, a free agent previously unsigned in 2018 after spending his first five NFL seasons with the San Francisco 49ers. Reid not only was an active participant with Colin Kaepernick during his anthem-kneeling, racial/social/police-brutality protests of 2016, he was the first player to join him.

❚ VIEW: Rampant speculation before Thursday had been that NFL teams were blackballing Reid because of his leading and vocal role in the protests, which offend numerous owners.

What kind of player is Reid? A first-round draft pick in 2013, Reid was named once to the Pro Bowl as a rookie. Through last season, he started 69 of 70 games in San Francisco and last year started 12 games, registering two interceptions, 66 tackles and breaking up four passes.

So, is the speculation of blackballing correct? Or had Reid’s effectiveness deteriorated to the point where even a sixth-year veteran safety with so much starting experience would not compel one of 32 teams this past spring and summer to afford Reid one of its 90 roster spots?

People quick to leap to the latter conclusion, perhaps, don’t know that even the defensively thin 49ers last season no longer felt Reid was worthy of starting anymore as a free safety once he returned from missing three early games with a knee injury. The Niners then tried turning Reid into a strong safety and within weeks, even moved him to and played him at linebacker.

Because of injuries, Reid finished last season as San Fran’s starting strong safety. Near season’s end, Reid said that because of his unabashed social activism come free agency in March, there “probably” would be teams “that won’t want to talk to me (and) that’s OK with me.”

All these months later, new players-friendly Panthers owner David Tepper surely okayed Thursday’s signing. That’s a good thing for the NFL. Surely Reid was worth a look by someone.

But can he still play? That fact, now that he’s on a team, will determine for how long he remains again in the NFL.

Is nothing really wrong with Andrew Luck’s arm?

❚ NEWS: QB Andrew Luck was pulled for the last play of the Indianapolis Colts’ loss last Sunday at Philadelphia. Backup Jacoby Brissett entered to throw a Hail Mary, snapped from the Indy 46. Brissett’s pass fell incomplete.

❚ VIEW: Ever since, speculation has swirled about the status of Luck’s shoulder. Is something wrong? Did he reinjure it? Was it never fully healed?

Before sitting out all of last season as he recuperated from invasive shoulderrepair surgery, Luck from 2012-16 could have made the throw Brissett made all day.

On Wednesday, Luck all but said he still can.

“I know I’m at a level where I can make all the throws and I feel confident I’m going out there with my full arsenal. I don’t think there’s anything holding me back,” Luck said, according to the Indianapolis Star.

The fact Luck is mostly just dumping off passes probably has more to do with the fact he’s trying to avoid getting killed than trying to cover up a deficient throwing arm. Only Sam Bradford among NFL starters has a lower yards-perattempt than Luck’s meagre 5.34.

Presumably, however, going forward head coach Frank Reich won’t have any player but Luck throw the next such long specialty long pass for the Colts. Otherwise, concerns about Luck’s arm will intensify.

Earl Thomas is in a ‘good place’ with the Seahawks?

❚ NEWS: Seattle head coach Pete Carroll said this week he thinks disgruntled safety Earl Thomas and the club are in “a good place” and that he, Carroll, is unconcerned about lingering issues going forward. All this, after Thomas sat out practices last week as he hopes for a trade.

❚ “We’ve been working through stuff,” Carroll said. “It’s not even a concern of mine right now … I think we’re in a good place and we’ve talked through the things we needed to talk through, and we’re moving.” ❚ VIEW: Only Carroll, Seahawks GM John Schneider and the former three-time All-pro know to what degree, if any, the parties really are dancing and singing through the poppy fields, hand-inhand, en route to the Emerald City. Frankly, I’m more than a little skeptical.

You don’t hold out from mid-season practices unless you are mighty disgruntled about something.

To Carroll’s and the Seahawks’ credit, they didn’t suspend Thomas; rather, they started him against Dallas last Sunday. And to Thomas’ credit, he ‘balled out’ against the Cowboys to the degree he had two key interceptions and seven tackles in Seattle’s much-needed first victory of the season.

Thomas sat out this Wednesday’s practice, but as a matter of routine; Carroll said that going back before this season he has given Thomas every Wednesday off, as a routine veteran courtesy. Thomas is in his ninth year in the NFL.

Look, it would come as a surprise to almost everyone if the Seahawks don’t trade Thomas by the Oct. 30 deadline. Such talks have reportedly taken place since the spring.

The Seahawks will continue to try to say all is well right up until that deadline, so as not to compromise their negotiating position, and until they’re sure they can get all they can for such a fabulous free safety, one of the best to take an NFL field so far this century.