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Arvell Reese wins his first NFC Defensive Player of the Week award, and C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love take the Week 9 offensive honors

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Giants rookie Arvell Reese is the NFC Defensive Player of the Week after 12 tackles and three sacks in Philadelphia. C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love win the offensive awards, Chris Jones takes the AFC defensive honor, and kickers Cam Little and Jake Bates win on special teams.

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NFL Week 9 Players of the Week graphics for C.J. Stroud, Chris Jones and Arvell Reese
Week 9 Players of the Week graphics for C.J. Stroud, Chris Jones and Arvell Reese. Image: NFL on X

Arvell Reese has the first award of what the Giants hope is a long rookie season. The No. 5 pick in the 2026 draft was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week on Wednesday for his game in Philadelphia, and Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud and Packers quarterback Jordan Love took the offensive awards in the league’s Week 9 honors.

Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones won on the AFC defensive side, and two kickers who did not miss on Week 9, Jacksonville’s Cam Little and Detroit’s Jake Bates, took the special teams awards.

Reese: 12 tackles, three sacks and a forced fumble

Reese led the Giants with 12 tackles and had three sacks and a forced fumble in a 19-11 win over the Eagles on Sunday. League research found he is the first rookie since at least 1994 with three sacks and 10 or more tackles in a game, and he joins the Jets’ David Bailey as the only rookies with a three-sack game this season. His strip sack in the first half gave the ball back to New York, and he now has 4.5 sacks for the season.

After the game Reese called his pass rush “free as a layup,” as we reported in our story on his postgame comments. The full game is in our Giants-Eagles recap. He gets the Commanders next, on Thursday night at the Meadowlands (8:15 p.m. ET, 3:15 a.m. Friday in Cairo), with the 5-2-1 Giants leading the NFC East. That game is previewed in our Thursday night guide.

Stroud ties his career high, Love posts a 153.2 rating

Stroud threw five touchdown passes in the Texans’ 44-22 win over the Chargers, matching the career high he set as a rookie. He completed 21 of 35 passes for 384 yards with one interception and a 125.5 passer rating. It is his fifth AFC Offensive Player of the Week award, and the first also came in Week 9, in 2023, the other time he threw five touchdown passes. League research says he joins Dan Marino, Matthew Stafford and Patrick Mahomes as the only quarterbacks with two or more games of 350 passing yards and five touchdown passes at age 25 or younger. Our Texans-Chargers recap has the details.

Love completed 23 of 29 passes for 372 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, and ran for a fourth score, in the Packers’ 45-27 win in New England. His 153.2 passer rating was the best of any quarterback in Week 9 and the highest by a Packers starter in a regular-season game since Aaron Rodgers’ perfect 158.3 against the Raiders in 2019. It is Love’s first NFC Offensive Player of the Week award of 2026 and the fifth of his career. Green Bay’s win is covered in our Packers-Patriots recap.

Stroud and Love were both nominated for this week’s fan-voted Air and Ground award, along with Joe Burrow, CeeDee Lamb, Puka Nacua and Kenneth Walker III. The league announces those winners later in the week.

Chris Jones wakes up, and two perfect kickers

Jones had half a sack in the season’s first eight games. Against the Jets on Sunday he had two sacks, two tackles for loss, four tackles and a pass breakup in a 35-12 Chiefs win, and he now has four AFC Defensive Player of the Week awards in his career. The game is in our Chiefs-Jets recap.

Little made all four of his field goal tries, from 36, 45, 47 and 33 yards, and all three extra points in the rain in Jacksonville’s 33-10 win over the Ravens last Thursday, a 15-point night described in our Jaguars-Ravens recap. It is his second AFC Special Teams Player of the Week award, and both came in Week 9: the first was last season, in the week he kicked the longest field goal in league history.

Bates scored all 13 of Detroit’s kicking points in a 19-9 win over the Dolphins, going 4-for-4 on field goals and making his only extra point. That game is in our Lions-Dolphins recap, and the Lions now head to Munich to play the Patriots on Sunday, which we are following in our Munich game week diary.

Week 9 winners

AFC: C.J. Stroud, Texans quarterback (offense); Chris Jones, Chiefs defensive tackle (defense); Cam Little, Jaguars kicker (special teams).

NFC: Jordan Love, Packers quarterback (offense); Arvell Reese, Giants linebacker (defense); Jake Bates, Lions kicker (special teams).

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