Jeremy Hill gains confidence in bounce-back performance against Bills

The first five weeks of the NFL season likely weren't what Jeremy Hill envisioned when it came to his personal production.

However, Hill has done a good job of keeping his head up and his teammates and coaches maintained the belief that his time would come. Through his first five games this season, Hill gained just 176 on 58 carries (3.0 ypc) to go with two catches for 14 yards, an average of just 38 total yards per game.

Against a stout Bills team that ranked fourth in rushing defense coming into Week 6, Hill gained 56 yards on 16 carries (3.5 ypc), and caught a 13-yard touchdown to open the scoring for Cincinnati.

That was Hill's first scoring catch of his NFL career, and it was a dandy:

#Bengals tie the game 7-7 with 3:26 remaining in the first. https://t.co/Ln8uTz2tZv

— Josh Kirkendall (@Josh_Kirkendall) October 18, 2015

Jeremy Hill took a dump pass to the house and is making the #BillsMafia feel some kind of way... https://t.co/nkKJCg1IBy

— DraftKings Playbook (@dkplaybook) October 18, 2015

Hill is now up to six scores this season after not hitting that mark until Week 12 last season. He looked much more decisive and confident than he has in recent weeks against the Bills. Hill was hitting the hole with little-to-no hesitation and took what the defense gave him opposed to dancing around and trying to make something happen that wasn't there.

He may not be off to the kind of big season many expected him to have after a monster second half of his rookie year, but that doesn't mean he's not having a good year. And, he's doing exactly that while sharing the load with Giovani Bernard. As the season rolls on and the Bengals have more games against weaker run defenses, we'll start seeing those 100-plus yard performances by Hill that we saw last season.

For now, what he's doing is enough to keep the Bengals undefeated heading into the bye week.