Just last month, D.J. Reed was retraining his body to conduct simple tasks, like "learning how to walk," he said, or "sitting down with everything hurting." The first couple weeks of rehab after the Lions' No. 1 corner was carted off the field with a hamstring injury in their Week 4 win over the Browns were brutal.
"And then I started progressing," Reed said Wednesday after returning to practice. "I’m just grateful that I’m able to run again and able to lift again."
The Lions started Reed's practice clock Wednesday, along with defensive end Marcus Davenport, giving them three weeks to activate him from injured reserve. That lines up with Dan Campbell's projection last week that Reed could be back by "early December." If it were up to Reed, he'd be in the lineup Sunday night against the Eagles.
"Me, I'm a gamer, so I’m ready, but that’s not my call," he said. "Obviously they’re going to be smart about it, but if you ask me, I’m ready to play. That’s just my mindset."
The most realistic return date for Reed might be Thanksgiving against the Packers, which would give him a couple weeks of practice to get his feet back under him. He was looking more and more like the shutdown corner the Lions signed for $48 million last offseason at the time of his injury.
Detroit's secondary has held up without him, and without fellow corner Terrion Arnold for a few games, but the unit will be even better with its best man-cover corner back on the field.
"I went from thinking like, dang, my season’s over with, very unfortunate, especially because I feel like I was getting into the groove of things here, to now I’m gonna be back," said Reed. "So I’m really hungry and I’m ready to help this team make that push."
With three children under the age of three, Sundays have looked quite different for Reed since his injury. Instead of going to work, "my wife and the kids, we’ve just been watching football, like all day on Sundays like everybody else," Reed said. Their oldest daughter would point to the screen looking for No. 4, "even though I’m right there" next to her, Reed said with a laugh.
"It was cool, but I was ready to get back on the field," he said. "It definitely gave me a different perspective on football and made me more grateful for it, and I also was happy to see guys in the secondary get a chance to ball and do their thing."
Now he's ready to do his.
"Man, you just can’t take this game for granted," said Reed. "I’m just happy to be back with the guys."