The Bengals left Week 7 with a win over Baltimore, and they also walked away with a rare double dip in the AFC’s weekly honors. Joe Burrow was named AFC Offensive Player of the Week, while Ryan Rehkow earned AFC Special Teams Player of the Week after Cincinnati’s 35-13 victory.
It’s a notable bit of team history for the Bengals. This is only the second time they’ve had two players of the week come out of the same game. The first time was back in 1994, when Jeff Blake and Doug Pelfrey got the nod after a 20-17 overtime win over Seattle.
Burrow’s performance against Baltimore was the kind that usually drives these awards. He finished 22-for-30 for 292 yards and four touchdown passes, and his 91.5 ESPN QBR ranked third among all passers in Week 7, behind Sam Darnold and Malik Willis. It was also Burrow’s eighth career weekly award, leaving him one shy of tying former Bengals NFL MVP Boomer Esiason for the most in franchise history.
After the game, Burrow made clear the Bengals believe they’ve found the formula they want to keep leaning on.
"Yes, we know who we are, we know who we have to be, and we let our big-time players go and make big-time plays. That's what the NFL is all about.
You can do all these different things, but at the end of the day, you just have to go make plays. You have to execute what's called, and that's what we did," Burrow said on Sunday after the win.
"That's who we got to be; that's who we got to be. Let our guys go make some big-time plays [and] efficient in the run game.
[The] offensive line played great. But yes, we just have to continue to do what we did in that second half.
We got that feeling, [and] we have to keep building on it."
Rehkow’s award carries its own slice of team significance. He became the first Bengals punter to win the honor since Kevin Huber did it in 2013.
Against Baltimore, Rehkow put together a sharp night with four punts averaging 46 yards. Every one of those kicks pinned the Ravens inside their own 20-yard line, and his longest boot went 56 yards.
Evan McPherson has also picked up a Special Teams Player of the Week award for Cincinnati this season.
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But the price tag is where the idea starts to wobble. With the Bengals still mindful of their salary cap and the rest of the roster to consider, paying premium draft capital for a back is a tougher sell than it might look from the outside. Cincinnati has not been framed as the front-line destination here, which leaves the door open to other Colts names or a different running back path entirely if the market for Taylor keeps climbing. [Read more 🡒]
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Former Bengal Is Outplaying Cincinnati's Defensive Centerpiece Right Now
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But there is an awkward twist in the early returns: D.J. Reader, the former Bengal now elsewhere, is sitting ahead of Lawrence among interior defenders in PFFs Week 8 rankings. And another familiar face, Trey Hendrickson, was back in the picture recently when he faced Cincinnati with Baltimore and raised some eyebrows with comments that hinted at a focus problem in the Ravens own locker room, a reminder that ex-Bengals keep popping up in the middle of the AFC Norths bigger defensive storylines. [Read more 🡒]