The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Texans Safety Justin Reid Joins The Matt Thomas Show 3-23-20

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

Houston Texans Safety, Justin Reid, joins Matt and Ross to discuss the DeAndre Hopkins trade, NFL Free Agency, how he is handling the current situation, and his work with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

Big Brothers and Big Sisters brings us a visit with one of our favorite Houston, Texas. He doesn't know this, but I can say it. Justin reads on the Matt Thomas show. Justin, it's Matt Ross. Good afternoon. I would say, how's it going? But I think you're with the rest of us right now, kind of basically bored, correct? Yeah, I'm in the same situation.

Quarantined up at home. Just find her out ways to, I can call my time. Well, you are working with the Big Brothers and Big Sisters. We'll talk more about that in a little bit. Are you a big self-motivator in terms of I need to get somewhere to work out, or can you do a lot of the stuff that you're trying to do in the offices at your house? I actually still go into rehab every day, Monday to Friday, into the facility to get my shoulder work doing. I still train my legs heavily, you know, squatting, leg press, some conditioning, running on the field.

Just ways to stay active, stay in shape, keep my body composition away. that I wanted to be set up, the better to prepare me for whenever we eventually do resume OTAs and practice whenever that will be. How often are you updated by your teammates, other guys around the league, about how much you can do, how much you can be at the facility, and when you think maybe real life can resume again? That's actually a great question. At this point in time, you're kind of just planning it by year.

I think that we might not be back maybe as far as late April, early May, maybe further. I mean, this is really an unprecedented event, and I'm not sure exactly how it's all going to go, but I'm just playing my part in the whole situation, staying home when I need to. I'm still going in in the morning to go get treatment and rehab, and then just passing the time finding ways to work on my self-improvement. You know, taking the positives in situations, I think this is an awesome opportunity for people to be able to really introspectively looking to themselves and, you know, find new hobbies or work on themselves. I'm going to be re-enrolling in school again. So I feel like there's a bunch of ways people can still make a positive out of the current situation that we're in.

So you say, yeah, you want to make it and spin it into a positive and you're going back to school. What else are you doing? Are you binging shows? Are you, I mean, playing video games? How are you passing the time, Justin? Yeah, I mean, all my, my schedule for the next two months has been wiped clean. I had a couple of travel visits. I was supposed to go to L.A., New York, and then Baltimore for the Ed Block Courage Award.

But all of those have been canceled or postponed. In the meantime, I still try and do what I can to help out in the community, mostly from home. I'm working with the Texas right now on this community project, trying to encourage kids just to read more books. so I'm going to be recording myself, shooting some videos, sending it off the kids. They're trying to encourage me to do that. But, yeah, at home, I love games. Like, board games, card games, playing a lot of cards with some of the fellas. Got, like, a pop-a-shot in the garage, just different things like that.

Do you have to Purell your hands before you touch the pop-a-shot? You know, I should do that a little bit more, honestly. But I do got the big bottle of Purell set in the kitchen. know, ready for anyone who wants it disinfectant. It's time to come into the house. Justin, you're a world-class athlete, and I'm a slow white man, but, man, we are living the same life right now, my friend. This is awful. It's terrible. We need real life again. This is not how we signed up for. You were involved with the Big Brothers and Big Sisters. How did you get involved with them originally, and what's the message they're trying to send right now to the youth that,

frankly, should be in school right now? Yeah, I got involved with them last year, whenever on a turkey drive during Thanksgiving. I want to find a new way and a new group to give back to. And I really wanted to start off smaller. So I worked with big brothers, big sisters. We helped out 10 to 12 families or just buying them, groceries, Thanksgiving meals. Some of the kids, I let them get a toy, too, just as, you know, just something fun for them to do. Just to help out some of these families that's a need and and Thanksgiving and, you know, at this point in time, really just, I just enjoy being in the community. I know big brothers, big sisters right now they're still looking for ways to get for people to get involved. I know money is a little bit tight for a lot of people right now, especially in the situation they're in,

but even just ways for people to just still get active and involved by just mentoring. I mean, right now they're still just acting for people who want to encourage all adults. interested in mentoring to sign up at BBBFTX.org. You know, that stands for big brothers, big sisters, tex, dot org. So triple B, like big ball of brand, BBFTX.org.

I want to encourage anyone, regardless of your situation, if you could donate financially, that's awesome. If you could donate your time, that's just as good. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's just ways to still stay involved.

What's Big Brother doing right now? I know he's still looking for work. Hoffering are you guys talking about his future. Yeah, we talk from time to time. I would love to get them down to Houston. You know, like we talked about that all the time growing up, just how fun that would be to play on the same team.

You know, the McCordy twins get to do it. Yeah. The Pouncey twins, they played together a little bit. And then, you know, JJ's brothers just now got together in Pittsburgh. So that's really cool for them, too. But, man, bad the opportunity to play with my brother. That would be awesome. But I'm not worried about him.

He set two franchise records last season. He's still in the prime missed career. He's going to get picked up. So when you were kids, would you play receiver versus cornerback? I mean, would you flip-flop? I mean, when y'all go each other against each other one-on-one, what positions were you all playing? Was it in basketball, two, baseball, football?

How competitive were the two of you growing up? Oh, man, extremely competitive. We just had a competitive household in general. It didn't matter what it was. It could be connect for. They could be basketball. We had a family friends down the street named Scott and Jay. And Scott was my brother's age and Jay was my age.

So what we do is we play pickup basketball. We switched teams. My brother would be with Jay and then I would be with Scott and we played two on two. You know what I mean? That's really who I played the most with Eric. And then with my middle brother, Ryan, we played soccer all day in the front yard. As far as football, I've only ever played defense. I wish I played more offense in high school.

We had such a big team that everybody only played one way. We had 120 kids on the roster. So we all just specialized early. But it didn't matter what it was. Swim team, baseball, basketball, soccer, track team. We all played it all. We all did it all. We all competed, you know, just to go all have fun and outdo each other.

Who called the most fouls, Justin? On the two-on-two games. That was probably me. You're that guy? No, wait a minute. Wait, minute. That's inconsistent with guys in the secondary who never think past interference should be called against them. That is not consistent to who you are.

At that point in time, when I was 13 and he was 18, he was a lot bigger than you had to do what I could. Oh, okay. The point spread down. Well, all right. So you were raised right after all. Let me tell you a week ago, my friend, we're busy with Justin Reed of the Texans. Ross and I were completely flabbergasted, dumbfounded. We didn't know what to say.

That's not good for radio guys when your ex-teammate was moved on to the Arizona Cardinals. Have you had a chance to reach out to D-Hop? Say your goodbyes. How did that conversation go? Or have you yet to have been able to do that? No, I haven't. I shot him a text message.

I know things are moving really, really fast and quick for him right now. He's been with the team for the eight or nine years. and, you know, the decision came as a surprise us too, but, you know, at the same time, I'm happy for him in the situation that he'll be moving on to. He'll be with a great team, as much as I hate to see him go for my team. You know how much we in the city of Houston all love him here,

but, you know, he's going to do great out there in Arizona, and they got a hell of a team that's building over there too. I'm going to assume the answer to this is yes, but how did he make you better during the week? Would he give you tricks of the trade about what receivers can do or what they see about you and say, hey, we can take advantage of this if Justin doesn't learn how to change his game a little bit. Yeah, Hop was a all-star teammate, too.

In addition to being a pro-bow wide receiver, he was a pro-bowl teammate. I still distinctly remember even the first game we ever played, it was against the preseason American year versus Kansas City. During the middle of the game, you know, they kept lining up three-by-one with Travis Colsey split out wide by himself. And he came and talked to me, and he was like, you know, So every offense in the league, whenever they line up in that formation like that, the tight-in's going to run a seam or a sling.

And then when he told me that tip and he told me to look for it and I started paying attention to it, I started seeing that play happen over and over and over across different teams, across different personnel groups. You know what I mean? It made sense. So he would drop nuggets of information like that all the time to different receivers, different DBs. I mean, when someone needed to be, you know what I mean, to be.

put back on track if they're not focusing up in the game, he would do that too. You know, so I had all the love and respect in the world for man. He taught me a lot along with other mentors that I had on the team like Johnson, Joseph, Kareem Jackson, Tyrant Matthew, you know, just learning from the guys around you, you know, and he was one of those guys too. You're making me sad bringing up all your ex-teammates now that are gone elsewhere. That was a real dose of reality right there. Before I let you run, and we really appreciate you coming on.

Tell me about what's going on with the candlelighters and the kids meals. I know that's also very important to you right now. Yeah, I've been working with the candlelighters for about two years now. I think they're sick organization as well as kids meals too. Right now, we can't really have people visiting in the hospital. I want to go see one of my guys, Jake, who I've been with her a year now. But the current C-Boid 19 crisis, it's very hard to let anyone intercept an immediate family. And, you know, that's the right thing to do since a lot of these kids are at risk with their medical situations.

But really still ways that anyone can get involved with that is, you know, a lot of these families still need help with parking assistance, gift cars, snack bags for essential hospital staff. Candelight is one of organizations. They work against childhood cancer. I didn't mention that, but a can't realize organization for childhood cancer. And they do an awesome job with that, as well as kids meals. Kids meals, their mission is to end childhood hunger in the city of Houston. And they started off with the age group of kids from zero to six years old because it's kind of a forgotten demographic. You know, once you're seven years old and you're in school, you'll at least get one meal a day.

But before that, these kids don't have any meals. So kids' meals really strives to go out, deliver meals to each of these kids and families. And right now, at the current crisis, they've expanded that age range. to I'm not sure if they're doing all the 10 years old. I'm not sure if they're doing all school-aged kids, but to really just help out with the situation with, you know, they're just school being out. You know, so, again, ways to help out with them.

You want to have all the Candleaders organization, www.candal.org. And as far as you want to have out with kids meals, www. www. tiny URL.com forward slash KM help, as in kids' meals help. You know, every $2 will feed a child, you know. So I thoroughly enjoy philanthropy.

I think it's important to get back to people because I know when I was growing up, I didn't get to where I am today. On my own, I had a phenomenal support group around me, so I really look forward and I enjoy giving back to the community around me. I encourage other people to do the same. And the way that they came in the safe way, you know, with the Seaboard Night Team thing going around. Yeah. Very, very poignant words from you, my friend.

We're happy to have you as a Texan hold tight. We don't want you to go anywhere. Sign a deal. Whatever you got to do. We need the good ones around. So we thank you for the time. And if you got other charitable things going on the next couple months, let us know we'll be happy to promote and push that agenda along.

And stay safe with you and your family. And we look forward to getting you guys back on the field in the not too distant future. We appreciate the time. afternoon. No problem. We're all playing on the same team right now with the health crisis, and I really enjoyed you guys bringing on. I appreciate you guys' time. And everybody be safe out there. You guys as well. Thank you very much. Justin Reed of the Houston Texans. We're this here on the Matt Thomas show. If you can't root for that young man, I don't know

if you should root for anybody. And I love the fact that he was able to say that his teammates were such a big part of how things went well.