Vigil playing key role in Bengals’ defense
Much of the talk about the Cincinnati Bengals last week centered on how linebacker Vontaze Burfict would provide the defense with a lift in his return from a threegame suspension. And that is what played out as the Bengals allowed season lows in points and yards in a 31-7 victory at Cleveland.
No one benefited more from Burfict’s return that linebacker Nick Vigil, who led the team with a career-high 11 tackles, including three for loss and his first NFL sack.
“Nick Vigil played his (butt) off,” Burfict said after the win. “Most of the plays I didn’t see or came to his side, he did a good job of rallying to it. I tip my hat to him. He gets the game ball from me.”
Vigil said that performance correlated with Burfict’s return.
“Offenses are keying on him,” Vigil said. “They’re knowing where he’s at all the time so that frees up stuff for me.”
Even before Sunday’s breakout game, Vigil had been one of the bright spots in an 0-3 start, leading the team in tackles in his first season as a starter.
“He has done a great job,” defensive coordinator Paul Guenther said. “It’s a natural process for linebackers like that, just trying to get lined up, where do I fit, where do I go on this blitz or whatever it may be. Right now for him, it’s clicking fast.”
The Bengals drafted Vigil in the third round last year out of Utah State, but most of his action was limited to special teams until the final weeks of the season when the team was out of playoff contention.
Vigil played 24 percent of Cincinnati’s defensive snaps in week 15, 31 percent in week 16 and 51 percent in the season finale.
“The more reps you get, the faster you play,” he said. “The more times you see it, the more you recognize it and you can diagnose the play faster. The more reps you get, you understand where your leverage is, where you have help, where you can miss and where you can’t.”
His adjustments were evident against the Browns, though he said he wasn’t perfect.
“I still missed a couple. Still have to clean up that,” Vigil said. “That’s probably one of the things I have to focus on the most — tackling.”
Vigil is proving he can do more than tackle. He has the speed to get to the edge against the run and cover running backs in the passing game, which is why he rarely comes off the field. Head coach Marvin Lewis said he didn’t need to watch game film to know how impressive Vigil was against the Browns.
“He played a really fine game. I could see that from the sideline,” Lewis said. “He was involved a lot of times in coverage, where he was in the right spot, and forced the ball to go underneath, which is an error we had made in the past. We had some growth and steps.”
Vigil’s emergence is a big reason why the Bengals rank third in the NFL in total defense (273.3 yards per game) and scoring defense (16.8 points per game).
“I think we’re playing well,” Vigil said. “The first couple of weeks we gave up a lot of big plays that killed us. This past week, we really didn’t do that.”
Burfict embraced Vigil from the moment he arrived in Cincinnati, calling him “Luke” — a reference to Carolina Pro Bowl linebacker Luke Kuechly — and helping him adjust to the NFL.
“It’s good when one of the best players on the team takes you in and helps you out and helps you learn stuff and accepts you in the group,” Vigil said. “It’s something that really helped me out early on.”