“Oh yeah,” said fellow safety David Bruton Jr., overhearing the conversation. “It’s like he’s playing basketball. It looks like he’s crossing you over. His deal is really unique.”

“His gift is he’s able to go out there and just make guys look silly, okay? I can’t do that,” said fellow tight end Vernon Davis. “When you look at a guy like Allen Iverson or Kyrie Irving, they have something about them when they move, that you can tell they’ve got an amazing crossover. Jordan has that.”

There’s a consensus, at least among Reed’s backers, that the fourth-year pro might be the best route-running tight end in football. Niles Paul has said it. (“There’s no one who runs routes like J-Reed, nobody,” he said.) Hall has said it, too, telling ESPN that Reed is “better than Gronk.” Sports Illustrated’s Andy Benoit goes further, calling Reed “far and away the best route-running tight end in the NFL.”

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Reed’s private receiving coach — who works with NFL wide receivers like Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders — said Reed runs better routes than most of his clients, that he’s “a wide receiver playing in a tight end’s body.” Davis struggles to compare Reed’s route-running to any tight ends other than Antonio Gates; “the only person I can think of is a wide receiver,” he finally said, naming Brown.

How is it that a high school quarterback who went to Florida to play that position could run better routes than men who have been doing it their whole lives? And what’s the measure of a brilliant route-runner, anyhow? Is it precision? Explosiveness? Athleticism?

Reed’s allies come back to the same few traits that have elevated his game. He thrives at deception, and so while many tight ends slow down or lift their body before their breaks, Reed makes just about every route appear like it might be a deep pattern, and then bursts into his breaks. He also has a mathematician’s grasp of angles, punishing defenders for any false motion or improper positioning. Teammates who cover him in practice say it’s a maddening task; if they’re patient, he still out-waits them before making his break, and when they try to guess what he’ll do, he does the reverse.

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“It’s a combination of understanding leverage, understanding opponents, his athleticism and his confidence,” said Washington safety Duke Ihenacho. “He just knows, I’m about to get this ball, and nobody can stop me.”

But Reed’s most important trait, they say, might be that basketball-inspired ability to make a defender lean one way before flying off in the other direction. That misdirection comes largely from Reed’s hips; “the most fluid hips maybe of anyone who has ever played the position,” wrote Sports Illustrated’s Benoit.

Reed said those movements came naturally after years on basketball courts, and that the footwork for many of his cuts is the same he uses in his basketball crossover. If the Redskins drafted pickup teams from their roster today, Reed said, he would likely be the first pick, and would be shedding defenders the same way he does on grass.

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“He’s harder to cover than the receivers are, because he just has so much shake,” Hall said on ESPN. “Gronk, I’m not scared he’s going to beat me deep. He’s going to try to body me; a possession receiver type of guy. Where a guy like J-Reed, when he gives you those shakes, it’s like trying to stick a basketball player.”

That’s what Reed did to poor Philadelphia linebacker Mychal Kendricks in the game that clinched Washington’s division title last season. Reed ran straight at Kendricks and then jabbed to the left. While Kendricks darted in that direction, Reed crossed him over, broke to the right and turned around for an easy touchdown grab. “Wasn’t even close,” color analyst Trent Green said.

And Reed polishes those skills not with other tight ends, but with wide receivers. Last offseason, he started working with David Robinson, a Houston Dallas-based coach whose clients include not just Brown and Sanders but also Rueben Randle, Laquon Treadwell, Corey Coleman and several other NFL wideouts. They practice beating press coverage with a basketball move — jab-stepping like they were creating a shot. They also focus on deception and misdirection, with Reed trying to move like a 5-foot-11 slot receiver instead of a 6-2, 245-pound tight end. Reed is sometimes the only tight end in the group, and he does the same drills as the receivers.

“Shoot, they think he’s the best tight end in the game,” Robinson said of his clients. “Jordan runs routes better than Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas, and those are No. 1 receivers in the league. I’ve seen Dez run routes. I’ve seen Demaryius in practice. I’ve seen how those guys get in and out of their cuts. Jordan could play wideout if they wanted to split him out. He could be a full-time wide receiver.”

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Reed flew Robinson to Virginia during the preseason — concerned that he wasn’t getting enough playing time to stay fresh — and the coach came back this week, so they could work on route-running throughout the holiday weekend.

“He wasn’t doing these things last season,” said Robinson, whose client still smarts from not getting a Pro Bowl nod in 2015. “He has things he needs to prove. He’s not satisfied. That’s a real good sign.”

Reed is clearly irreplaceable for the Redskins. Since he arrived in Washington, the Redskins are 6-4 when Reed has at least 75 receiving yards, and 10-28 when he doesn’t. They’re 13-16 when Reed has at least three catches, and 3-16 when he doesn’t. And in the past two seasons, Washington is 12-13 when Reed plays, and 1-6 when he sits out.

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Maybe there are other players as valuable to the Redskins. But it isn’t a long list. That’s not because of his blocking, or his hands, or the way he breaks tackles. It’s because he gets open.