Bengals Week 15 snap count: Jake Fisher gets his chance

The Bengals’ loss to the Steelers saw some interesting changes to the snap counts on offense and defense for Cincinnati. The biggest change was second year offensive tackle Jake Fisher starting and playing 44 snaps on offense. Fisher is far from perfect, but, he’s learning and the potential is there.

Injuries on defense also allowed some of the younger players to play, though, there are veterans who are still playing far too many snaps. That includes Domata Peko and Michael Johnson who have been largely ineffective during their time on the field. Hopefully during the next two weeks we’ll see more of the young players and less of the aging veterans.

Here are some of my biggest snap count takeaways:

• Ryan Hewitt’s snap count continues to be troubling as he only played 8 snaps on Sunday. It seems offensive coordinator Ken Zampese doesn’t know how to use him, and that’s not a good thing.
• Darqueze Dennard played five snaps on Sunday and it’s becoming more and more clear that the Bengals don’t trust him.
• Cedric Ogbuehi played four snaps on Sunday, though, none of them were particularly memorable.
• With those last two bullets in mind, the Bengals’ last three first round picks played a combined 9 snaps on Sunday. Color me unimpressed.
• Jake Fisher got his first NFL start and played 76% of snaps, with Eric Winston filling in for the other 24% of the playing time. Fisher, at a minimum, certainly looks better than Cedric Ogbuehi did. And, Andy Dalton was sacked just once on Sunday.
• Tyler Eifert played 100% of offensive snaps, the first time he’s done that this year. Oddly, he was targeted just three times in the passing game.
• Similarly, Cody Core played 76% of snaps and was targeted three times and Tyler Boyd played 78% of snaps and was also targeted three times. It was Brandon LaFell, who played 91% of snaps, who got the most targets (9) and hauled in 7 catches.
• Jeremy Hill played 64% of the snaps despite Rex Burkhead being far more effective in his snaps.
• Domata Peko played 59% of snaps, which in my opinion is far too many. He isn’t producing at a high enough level to warrant that playing time. Peko had 4 tackles on Sunday (2 solo, 2 assisted).
• New dad Margus Hunt saw his playing time increase this week and there were times during the game where he looked impressive, including two early back-to-back tackles. He finished with 3 tackles.
• Some of the younger guys also saw their playing time increase. DeShawn Williams played 12% of defensive snaps, Nick Vigil played 24% (due to both Vontaze Burfict and Vincent Rey dealing with injuries during the game), Clayton Fejedelem played 1 snap and even Marquis Flowers played 1 snap.
• Rey Maualuga was involved more this week than he has during much of the season. He played 31 snaps in an attempt to slow down Le’Veon Bell. The Bengals held Bell to 93 rushing yards, which was his first sub-100 game in five weeks.