Arvell Reese keeps stacking accolades almost as fast as he stacks up sacks.
The Giants linebacker picked up NFL Rookie of the Week honors for Week 9 on Thursday, one day after being named NFC Defensive Player of the Week. Both awards came on the heels of the best game of his young career, a wrecking-ball showing in the Giants’ 19-11 win over the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. Reese finished with three sacks, 12 tackles and a forced fumble.
“It’s what you hope for,” head coach John Harbaugh said of Reese’s dominance.
“I won’t say we didn’t think it was possible. I mean, that’s what we hoped for, and he fell to us [in the draft].
Joe [Schoen] and I, we were giddy. I think we were kind of beside ourselves.”
Reese’s rise has been one of the biggest reasons the NFC East-leading Giants have been able to lean on him so heavily. Through Thursday night’s game against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium, he led the team in tackles with 68, sacks with 4.5 and tackles for loss with 8.5.
The fact that he was available at No. 5 in April’s NFL Draft made his early impact even more striking. Reese, 21, was viewed by many as the top prospect in the class, but he slid behind Fernando Mendoza, David Bailey, Jeremiyah Love and Carnell Tate, who went first through fourth to the Raiders, Jets, Cardinals and Titans, respectively.
That draft-day slide has already worked out well for the Giants. After Sunday’s win, second-year pass rusher Abdul Carter posted, “Shout out all them teams who passed on VeLL,” on social media.
Reese’s path to this point was shaped by the way Ohio State used him. Last season, as a junior, he played a hybrid role in Matt Patricia’s defense, lining up for 356 snaps as an outside linebacker and 238 inside. Even with limited edge work, he still produced 6.5 sacks.
Most teams projected him as an outside linebacker entering the draft, but the Giants were drawn to what they saw when the 6-4, 243-pound Reese played off the ball. That led them to take him as an inside linebacker, even with the roster already loaded at edge rusher.
Defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson recently called that evaluation “easy.”
“When you watched him play at Ohio State, when he was off the ball, he made a huge impact,” Wilson said last month. “He can read.
He can dissect. He’s just a natural linebacker.
We always thought that the subset was [for] him to go forward as a defensive lineman.”
The Giants have needed that versatility more than ever after season-ending injuries to inside linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and pass rusher Brian Burns pushed Reese into an even bigger role. He’s handled it well enough to become the only NFL player through nine weeks with at least 65 tackles, eight tackles for loss and an interception.
Harbaugh praised more than just the production.
“He’s really a good player, and he’s all the other things, too,” Harbaugh said. “He’s a great young man.
He’s humble. He’s very tough.
He works really hard. He’s very coachable.
He wants to do things the right way. He’s a great leader in his own quiet way.”
Reese’s Week 9 performance included the fastest sack in the NFL this season, according to Next Gen Stats. He got to Eagles quarterback Joe Milton in 2.29 seconds.
It was Reese’s second Rookie of the Week award of the season. He also won it in Week 4 after posting nine tackles and an interception, plus a QB hit that led to another interception by Greg Newsome II, in a win over the Arizona Cardinals.
And the hardware may not stop there. Entering Week 10, sportsbooks had Reese as the favorite for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, with the Jets’ Bailey next in line. Bailey has 7.5 sacks in eight games.
Kayvon Thibodeaux said the Giants saw this coming from the start.
“Since the first day Arvell joined the team, from training camp, when I saw him play, I’m like, ‘This dude’s got a chance to be Rookie of the Year, if not one of the best defensive players in the league,’” Thibodeaux said.
“Seeing him play great, that’s what he does every day.”
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