Rams’ Omar Speights once left Philadelphia to flee violence. His journey will come full circle vs. the Eagles Sunday

Omar Speights didn’t have any cut-down-day anxiety. Few undrafted free agents have such a luxury. But Speights entered training camp with the Los Angeles Rams with a simple mindset. He didn’t care that his name didn’t get called in April’s NFL draft. All he could control was what was next.

“I was just trying to stay focused on myself and not worried about the odds that were stacked against me,” he said. “Drafted or undrafted, I’m going to put in the same amount of work. Put in the hard work and let the chips fall where they may.”

It only took three preseason games for the Rams to see enough. They sat the Philadelphia native for their preseason finale, not only because he had made the team, but because he was important enough that the injury risk wasn’t worth it.

Nearly 3,000 miles away, there was a sense of validation. Patricia Reichner never questioned whether the decision to send Speights off to Oregon for his senior year of high school to escape Philadelphia’s gun violence was the wrong one. She was a mother trying to keep her son alive. Speights’ friend was shot and killed in August 2018, and just a few weeks later Speights was heading west, where he had already committed to join his older brother, Jeromy Reichner, at Oregon State.

» READ MORE: Sending her son away to finish high school was ‘the best decision I ever made,’ says football star’s mother

Reichner said she didn’t have this in her mind back then. She never stopped to think whether this would or wouldn’t happen. She was “too busy living in each moment.” Reichner, a white woman raising three Black children, previously described her life back then as “survival mode.” The NFL was something in the distance. She prayed it would happen, to be sure. She asked that if “this is what he wants to do, if it’s meant to be, please make it happen.”

So when she got word in August that Speights had made the roster, there was a lot to reflect on.

“I think through everything, every obstacle we encountered, every up, every down, it was just a sense of vindication,” Reichner said.

Speights feels it, too. He’ll take the field Sunday against his hometown team while on a rapid ascent, from undrafted to the 53-man roster to special teams ace to starting inside linebacker.

Speights, who played at Imhotep Charter and was due to finish his high school career at Northeast High School before leaving the city, was solely a special teamer until Week 8, when he saw 22 defensive snaps. He played five more in Week 9 before taking over as a starter the last two games while Troy Reeder, a Delaware native, is out with a hamstring injury. Speights has taken full advantage of his opportunity. He had eight tackles in his first start in Week 10, then followed that up with six more during a win at New England last week. He also tallied three pressures on four blitzes.

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Speights said he’s just playing free and trusting his preparation during this recent run. He’s also relying on his faith more than ever. After finishing his season at LSU, where he transferred for his final year of college, he trained for the draft process in Fresno, Calif. In late March, after spending some time at church, he was baptized.

“I just feel like whenever you get invited somewhere or someone is speaking to you about God, I feel like that’s God sending you a sign,” Speights said. “I just felt like it was the right time.”

That, too, helped him navigate not being drafted.

“It’s been a long journey,” Speights said. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes, we finally got here and we’re planning to be here for a long time.”

Preparing for the Eagles, Speights said, is mostly just like any other game. He liked the Eagles as a kid, but also was a big fan of Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens.

Reichner has a standard routine on Sundays. She goes to church in the morning — Mass time depends on what time the Rams play — and then she heads home to watch her son play. Since Speights left for the West Coast, the physical distance, not seeing him play in person, has always been the hardest, Reichner said. So on Sundays: “I’m locked in. Don’t bother me. Leave me alone. Don’t say anything to me.”

» READ MORE: Containing Jalen Hurts, stopping a ‘disruptive’ defense, and more of what the Rams are saying about the Eagles

This weekend, though, she’ll see Speights play his first regular-season NFL game in person along with her daughter, Briana, her older son, Jeromy, and a few grandkids, including Speights’ daughter.

Speights is looking forward to putting on a show, but also celebrating everything that has gone into it.

“They poured a lot into me growing up,” he said of his family. “My mom really sacrificed her whole life to dedicate it to her kids. To have her come out here and see that her hard work paid off, keeping me and my siblings on the straight and narrow, it paid off. Going out there and making my family proud is going to mean everything to me.”

To his mother, too.

“I’m tearing up now just thinking about it,” Reichner said. “It’s definitely going to be emotional for me.”

The Eagles play in Week 12 against the Los Angeles Rams. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and EJ Smith as they dissect the hottest storylines surrounding the team on Gameday Central, live from SoFi Stadium.