Missing one game is an impressive feat for Houston Texans safety Justin Reid.
The 22-year-old has suffered through his fair share of wear-and-tear throughout 2019, sustaining a concussion, wrist and shoulder injuries.
Often on Sundays, Reid is pulled off the field, grasping his shoulder, only to get back on the field minutes later. In the eyes of many, he turns a season-ending injury, or at least a game-ending one, into a simple stinger.
On Tuesday, Texans players recognized Reid’s toughness, giving him the Ed Block Courage Award, given to the player who overcomes adversity, either on or off the field.
As far as his family is concerned, Reid’s toughness is expected. He grew into the role of a defender willing to play through the pain.
“My mom, you want to talk about toughness — my mom was probably the biggest contributing factor to toughness for me and my brothers because she’s a nurse, so she knows what a real injury is and everything like that,” Reid said on Tuesday.
“So, every time we would go down on the field and she could tell it wasn’t really anything serious, I’d hear her voice cut through the crowd. She’d be the first one telling us to get back up, ‘Get up! Get up!’ So I learned from an early age, if it’s not something that’s actually serious and it’s something I can play through, you’re going to play through it.”
Reid roams the field with a “thumper” mindset, a trait his brother, Carolina Panthers safety Eric Reid, shares. Despite injuries, the Prairieville, La., native has missed just one career game. In 29 games, the Stanford product has four interceptions, 14 pass deflections and 160 combined tackles.
Reid knows when he can play and can’t. Unless it is a concussion that the league has strict rules about players returning to action, no other material force can keep him off the gridiron.
“I always think I’m going to go back in,” Reid said. “That’s just my competitive spirit, that I’m going to be out there on the field with my brothers and I’m going to play and help my team win a football game in any way that I can. If I ever did get to that point, then at that point I’ll pull the plug, but it’s not there yet, and I know I can play.”
It’s going to take a lot more than a few shoulder and wrist injuries to take out 2019’s Ed Block Courage Award winner.