Rams LB Omar Speights faces his hometown Eagles on Sunday in Los Angeles

Omar Speights wasn’t afraid of mining. Few undrafted free agents have such a luxury. But Speights entered Los Angeles Rams training camp with a simple mindset. He didn’t care that his name wasn’t called in April’s NFL draft. All he could control was what came next.

“I just tried to focus on myself and not worry about the odds that were against me,” he said. “With or without a draft, I will 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 used the Philadelphia native for their preseason finale, not just because he made the team, but because he was important enough that the risk of injury wasn’t worth it.

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

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Reichner said she didn’t have it in her head at the time. She never thought about whether this would happen or not. She was “too busy living in every moment.” Reichner, a white woman raising three black children, previously described her life at the time as “survival mode.” The NFL was a bit far away. She prayed that it would surely happen. She asked, “If that’s what he wants to do, if that’s how it’s meant to be, then please make it happen.”

When she learned in August that Speights had been added to the roster, it gave her a lot to think about.

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

Speights feels it too. He’ll face his hometown team on Sunday, making a meteoric rise from undrafted roster to 53-man roster to special teams ace to starting inside linebacker.

Speights, who played at Imhotep Charter and would finish his high school career at Northeast High School before leaving town, was exclusively a special teams player until Week 8, when he saw 22 defensive snaps. He played five more games in Week 9 before taking over as the starter for the final two games while Troy Reeder, a Delaware native, was sidelined with a hamstring injury. Speights took full advantage of his opportunity. He had eight tackles in his first start in Week 10, followed by six more in a road win at New England last week. He also scored three pressures in four blitzes.

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Speights said he was just playing freely in this latest run and trusting in his preparation. He also relies on his faith more than ever. After finishing his season at LSU, where he transferred for his senior year of college, he trained in Fresno, California for the draft process. At the end of March, after spending some time in church, he was baptized.

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

That also helped him come to terms with 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 plan to stay here for a long time.”

Preparing for the Eagles, Speights said, was much like any other game. As a child, he loved the Eagles, but was also a big fan of Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens.

Reichner has a standard routine on Sundays. She goes to church in the morning – the service time depends on when the Rams play – and then heads home to watch her son play. Since Speights moved to the West Coast, the hardest part has always been the physical distance and not being able to see him play in person, Reichner said. So on Sundays: “I’m locked up. “Don’t bother me.” Leave me alone. Don’t tell me.”

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This weekend, however, she will see Speights play his first regular-season NFL game in person, along with her daughter Briana, her older son Jeromy and several grandchildren, including Speights’ daughter.

Speights is excited to put on a show, but also to celebrate everything that goes into it.

“They gave me a lot growing up,” he said of his family. “My mother truly sacrificed her entire life to dedicate it to her children. It was worth it for her to come here and see her hard work pay off and keep me and my siblings on the right path. Going out there and making my family proud will mean everything to me.”

Also his mother.

“It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it,” Reichner said. “It’s definitely going to be emotional for me.”