Reid relishing rookie NFL season with Colts
Playoffs start Sunday for Indianapolis
BY TIM MORRIS
Staff Writer

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS Freehold Borough native Darrell Reid has earned his spot on the Indianapolis Colts’ roster and is loving every minute of it.

If this National Football League season has been a dream to Darrell Reid, don’t wake him.

The former Freehold Borough High School football great can’t help believing that he has been living a dream in his rookie season. He’s not only gotten to fulfill a dream he’s had since he first played football in the backyard, but he’s doing it with the Indianapolis Colts — the NFL’s best team during the regular season and the odds-on favorite to be playing in the Super Bowl in Detroit on Feb. 5.

“I feel so blessed to be where I’m at,” Reid said. “I couldn’t have dreamed it any better. I can’t believe what’s going on.

“It’s [the NFL] always been a dream, and at some point it became a goal,” he added. “It’s so rare in life that your dreams come true.”

Last spring, Reid was not even sure he’d be playing in the NFL, let alone preparing this week for the playoffs. After a fine four-year career at the University of Minnesota, where he earned All-Big 10 honors and was the team’s Defensive MVP his senior year, the 6-foot-2, 288-pound Reid went undrafted.

“I had a pretty good senior year and I thought that I would be drafted, but I was prepared for not being drafted,” he said. “You have to keep it all in perspective.”

The perspective was the bright side of not being drafted. He was able to go free agent, which meant that teams would call him and he’d get to choose. The phone, though, wasn’t ringing off the hook.

“I got two calls, from the [Minnesota] Vikings and the Colts,” he said. “I wanted to go to Minnesota. I had a pretty good career there, and Minnesota had been nice to me. I knew some of the Viking players. My agent advised me to go to the Colts because they were a better fit for me.”

He took the advice and signed with the Colts.

Even though he had signed an NFL contract, there was no guarantee that the ex-Colonials star would make the Colts’ roster. The toughest part of making an NFL team was still ahead.

Despite playing in a major conference like the Big 10 on a Minnesota team that made it a habit of going to bowl games, Reid admits that nothing prepared him for his first NFL training camp.

“Camp was tough, the toughest time for me,” he said. “I went from feeling I wasn’t good enough to play with these guys, to what separates me from the other players.

“I had a time adjusting to NFL speed — it was one of the many new things I had to learn,” he added. “I guess I adjusted all right.”

The NFL preseason provided Reid with his big break.

“The Colts rested their starting defensive linemen in the preseason, and I got to play,” he remarked. “I played pretty well.”

Still, when final cut day came, Reid was prepared if the phone call came informing him that he had been cut. The call never came and he was an Indianapolis Colt.

“The Colts’ line coach, John Terrlik, told me early on that because I could play multiple positions, that made me more valuable [to the team],” he said.

Reid has played defensive end, defensive tackle, and on the kickoff and special teams, appearing in eight games with 11 total tackles.

“Wherever I can contribute I’ll play,” he said.

It didn’t take Reid long to see what made the NFL so much better than college ball.

“The NFL is so much more advanced,” he pointed out. “In college you have to worry about going to class and you can only practice for a certain period of time. Here, football is a job. It’s 9-to-5 and nothing else.”

“A lot more work goes into it making it a better product,” he added.

Reid has a new appreciation for NFL players and the physical toll a full season takes.

“I don’t know how they do it,” he said. “I played in eight games and didn’t see significant time but in a couple of games. They are hurting. They are in great physical shape.”

Being a member of the Colts means playing with one of the league’s marquee players, quarterback Peyton Manning. Reid’s first impression of Manning was positive and gave him a hint of the type of organization the Colts are.

“It was in the summer before camp started and we [free agents] were working out,” he noted. “Peyton Manning came up to me and said he appreciated what we were doing and was glad to have us there.

“It showed the type of class organization the Colts are,” he added. “It’s very personalized. That made me feel that I belong there.”

Playing for head coach Tony Dungy has been special as well.

“I can’t say enough about him,” he said. “You can’t help but root for him. He’s such a great person. He’s strong and he’s focused.”

No matter where he has played, be it for the Colonials in Freehold Borough, the Gophers in Minnesota or now with the Colts, Reid has always brought the same all-out approach.

“I’ve always taken my grandfather’s advice, if you’re going to do something, do it to the best of your ability,” said Reid. “I always go hard and I’ve always cherished the game.

“When I broke my hand at Freehold and I couldn’t play, I missed it,” he said. “That made me always work extra hard.”

Freehold Borough remains close to Reid’s heart. He’s constantly in touch with Jason Kutney and Dave O’Rourke, the Colonial athletes with whom he shared the News Transcript’s Male Athlete of the Year Award in 2000.

“They’re still my boys,” he said. “We keep in touch all the time.

“I think of everyone along the way who helped me.”

Reid proudly pointed out that Kutney, who went on to play college soccer at Duquesne, actually played professionally before him. He said that Kutney has a tryout coming up with the L.A. Galaxy.

Reid is one up on his high school teammate because this week, he is preparing for the NFL playoffs. The Colts, which had the best record in the league, 14-2, and will get to play all of their games inside the friendly confines of the RCA Dome, start the run they hope leads to the Super Bowl on Feb. 5 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“I can already tell the playoffs are different,” Reid said. “We have guys who have been there, who have a lot of veteran experience and are at the peak of their careers. They know what it takes.”

If this has all been a dream for Reid, he hopes he doesn’t awake from it until the day after the Super Bowl.