Eric Reid

9:45 a.m. EDT April 26, 2013

Jim Harbaugh was giving the lowdown on the latest addition to his intimidating defense on Thursday night, when the San Francisco 49ers coach gave an indication of just how deep his connection is with versatile safety Eric Reid.

He remembers the e-mails.

“Exchanged a lot of e-mails with his mom,” Harbaugh said, referring to Sharon Reid.

There were a few phone calls with Eric Reid Sr., too.

These were flashbacks from several years ago, when Harbaugh, as Stanford coach, got to know the parents while trying to lure the top-rated player in Louisiana to play for him on the West Coast.

Reid turned down Harbaugh back then, staying home for LSU.

“He was a very, very fine student,” Harbaugh recalled. “That was something that was important to his mother. So I felt like we had a shot.”

Stanford was the only out-of-state school that tried to recruit Reid, although Harbaugh never made an in-person visit because Reid had already committed to LSU by the time coaches were allowed to make recruiting trips. Other schools figured it was a waste of time. As Reid put it, he bled the LSU purple and gold.

But now he’s going to be playing for Harbaugh on the West Coast, after all. The 49ers moved up 13 slots in the first round that make sure this would happen.

“This time, Eric had no choice,” Harbaugh said.

Seems that the safety’s mother, a traveling nurse who has spent extensive time working in the San Francisco Bay Area, was hoping for this outcome, too.

“I guess it’s just a small world, being that they picked me,” Reid said. “Coach Harbaugh … poked fun at me for not going to Stanford and choosing LSU, but the story comes full circle that he ended up drafting me.”

The NFL draft process is such a different animal from the college recruiting whirlwind, which is striking, then, considering how this played out for Reid — whom 49ers general manager Trent Baalke described as the “prototype” safety.

Reid, 6-1, 213, was coveted in part because of the height, weight, speed mix that Baalke gushed about, and also due to the range and “contact courage” that Harbaugh detailed. Yet unlike college recruiting, the 49ers kept their interest under wraps.

Reid said the 49ers did express an interest to obtain him, but a lot of teams told him that. There were no promises. And the 49ers didn’t even fly Reid to their headquarters for a predraft visit.

Why not?

“Why would we want to advertise to the rest of the league that we had interest in a player?” Baalke said.

When the draft began, though, landing Reid was apparently the priority for a team that lost all-pro safety Dashon Goldson to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a free agent.

“This was definitely Option A,” Harbaugh said.

They surely needed a few more options. The 49ers began the day with an NFL-high 13 picks, but the first selection was next-to-last in the first round. To move up to land Reid, the 49ers gave up a third-round pick (74th overall) to the Dallas Cowboys.

Reid was the second safety off the board, following the New Orleans Saints’ pick of Kenny Vaccaro with at No. 15.

Baalke said the parameters for a trade were put in place before the draft, given all the conversations with various teams in recent days as they weighed scenarios.

“This was a busy week,” Baalke said. “There were a lot of teams looking to do a lot of things. I thought there would be more trades than there were.”

The 49ers — widely projected to be an active trader, given their high number of picks — were one of four teams that swung trades to swap first-round picks while moving up in the pecking order.

Another team, the Minnesota Vikings, gave up second-, third-, fourth- and seventh-round picks to the New England Patriots to get an extra first-round pick, and used it to select Tennessee receiver Cordarrelle Patterson.

Baalke maintained that with few marquee (read: offensive skill-position) players at the top of the draft, there was a very large group of players at the next level. So much for the “best available player” philosophy. It was more like the best from a group.

“In a draft like this, the players available are very close to one another,” he said. “So you’re going to address need in those situations, and I think that’s want a lot of teams did, us included.”

Yet clearly, the 49ers saw one player they separated from the pack.

They may not be done with the wheeling and dealing. The 49ers are almost on the clock again. They own the second pick on Friday, 34th overall, obtained from the Kansas City Chiefs in the trade for Alex Smith.

Does Baalke have a player in mind for that pick?

“Absolutely, we know,” he said.

But things change. This is the NFL draft.

“That doesn’t mean that something can’t happen over the night and you wake up tomorrow and the phone rings and somebody has a deal that you can’t refuse, and you trade back,” Baalke said. “Otherwise, we are prepared to make the pick.”

Baalke was looking to go home, take a break, and recharge for the rest of the draft.Someone asked if he’d leave his phone on, obviously to field trade offers.

“I always leave it on,” he said.

from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/niners/2013/04/26/jim-harbaugh-finally-gets-his-man-eric-reid/2115019/

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Eric Todd Reid was born on December 10th, 1991 according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Reid_(American_football)

December 10th, 1991

12 + 10 +1+9+9+1 = 42 = his life lesson = Everybody loves Eric Reid.

Two of Cups Tarot card

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December 10th, 1991

December 10th

12 + 10 +2+0+1+2 = 27 = his personal year (from December 10th, 2012 to December 9th, 2013) = First round draft pick.

Ace of Wands Tarot card

27 year + 4 (April) = 31 = his personal month (from April 10th, 2013 to May 9th, 2013) = Competition. Rising to the challenge.

Five of Wands Tarot card

31 month + 25 (25th of the month on Thursday April 25th, 2013) = 56 = his personal day = Had no choice.

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using the number/letter grid:

1      2    3       4       5       6     7    8     9
A      B   C      D      E       F      G     H      I
J   K    L      M      N     O   P    Q R
S     T      U      V     W     X      Y    Z

Where:

A = 1 J = 1 S = 1

B = 2 K = 2 T = 2

C = 3 L = 3 U = 3

D = 4 M = 4 V = 4

E = 5 N = 5 W = 5

F = 6 O = 6 X = 6

G = 7 P = 7 Y = 7

H = 8 Q = 8 Z = 8

I = 9 R = 9

Eric Todd Reid

5993 2644 9594 69