NFL Week 5 Bengals Snap Counts: Strange things happening

The Bengals offensive and defensive snap counts in Dallas offered some surprises. A lot of that had to do with playing from behind and attempting to get into scoring positions, but, there are some questions that linger after looking over the numbers.

Somewhat surprisingly, in his first active gameday for the Bengals, Cody Core took 13 snaps on offense. Core also had a tackle on his first play, the opening kickoff. Alex Erickson also played 10 snaps on offense and Tyler Boyd was more involved than he has been the last two weeks, playing 50 snaps on offense. The defensive line snap counts are more concerning as certain players' involvement doesn't make as much sense. We'll get to that and more below.

• Josh Shaw seems to have overtaken Darqueze Dennard for the slot cornerback job. Shaw played nearly double the number of snaps as Dennard in Dallas.
• The defensive line saw an interesting (hint: in a bad way) rotation. Margus Hunt played the same number of snaps as Carlos Dunlap (34). Michael Johnson played 39 snaps (68%), which was matched by only Geno Atkins. Domata Peko played 38 snaps (67%) which also seems like far too many for the veteran, even in a run-heavy game.
• Derron Smith was stiff armed by Jason Whitten and clearly the coaches didn't like what they saw as that was his only play of the day.

• Tyler Boyd saw more snaps on Sunday than he has been with 50 (71%).
• It seems to be a trend that when Ryan Hewitt is minimally involved, the Bengals lose. Such was the case in Dallas where he took just 6 offensive snaps. Maybe the Bengals don’t trust him, or maybe play calls aren’t suited for his strengths, but, the Bengals need to get Hewitt involved. They did just give him a three year, $7,500,000 contract in the offseason.
• Jake Fisher was on the injury report leading up to the Dallas game with a back injury and he did not play on Sunday, even on special teams.
• C.J. Uzomah continues to earn the majority of the tight end snaps over Tyler Kroft. Uzomah had 54 snaps to Kroft's 23. Uzomah caught 5 passes for 43 yards on sunday while Kroft caught three for 29 yards. Neither missed a target or dropped a pass, which is a step in the right direction for the duo.