Vincent Rey gets NFL Spin Zone Player of the Week

Ray Rice (27) runs with the ball as Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vincent Rey (57) defends at M

Even though he was on the losing side of a game that somehow went into overtime, Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vincent Rey definitely deserves praise for his play in the loss. I mean, it’s not his fault that Andy Dalton looked like an absolute trainwreck out there, to the point where we might have to starting differentiating between a “Good Andy” and “Bad Andy”. But anyway, Vincent Rey looked like a beast starting for Rey Maualuga, which means that the Cincinnati Bengals may have just seen a “Wally Pipp” scenario. Maualuga will likely return after the bye week is over (Week 12 is the Bengals bye), but a different “Rey” will be the team’s starting middle linebacker if he keeps it up, which would make the Bengals defense even nastier.

Vincent Rey had some tough competition this week from fellow defensive standouts Calais Campbell, J.J. Watt, and Von Miller this week, but I decided to go with Rey’s incredible dominance on the stat sheet. The man somehow managed to record 15 tackles (ten of the solo variety), record three sacks, and defend a total of three passes. So basically, Rey dominated in all facets of the game, and he really gave the Baltimore Ravens offense some massive headaches.

To put up those kinds of numbers all across the board is almost impressive, and his ability to make play after play earned him an easy spot as this week’s Player of the Week recipient. You want your linebackers to make plays in every facet of the game, especially the Mike, and that’s exactly what Rey was able to do on Sunday. When he blitzed, he made his blitzes count. He added some amazing pass coverage into the equation and also looked like a top-notch run-stopper when going downhill. We’ll see if he can continue to play at a high level, as next week’s game against the Cleveland Browns will give another sample from which we can evaluate Rey. He won’t be replicating this performance on the stat sheet any time soon, but he could continue to rack up just-as-impressive play on the game tape next week.

He came out of nowhere on Sunday, and he also gets a congrats from us for notching his first career interception.

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