NFL Week 15: Bengals’ snap count distribution vs the Vikings

It was not a great Sunday to be a Bengals fan. It was almost like watching a ship slowly sink into the ocean. You know it is awful what is happening, but you just can’t seem to look away.

In any case, the Bengals were forced to play fairly deep into their bench on Sunday due to injuries. The team also made another young wide receiver a healthy scratch, and Andy Dalton gets benched in a lousy loss again.

Snap count takeaways:

• It was a rough day for the offense and defense. The Bengals saving grace (and I’m using that term very liberally) is that the Vikings didn’t out snap them by that much. The Bengals ran 55 snaps to the Vikings’ 67 snaps. Of course the Vikings held the ball for over 11 minutes longer than the Bengals, and had plenty of big plays to drive down the field.
• Giovani Bernard (49) started in place of Joe Mixon again. He was largely ineffective for most of the day. He had 43 total yards on 17 touches. He did score the Bengals only touchdown late in the fourth quarter though.
• Tyler Boyd was a healthy scratch because this team must think they need to inactivate one young wide receiver per game in order to function. You would think this move would lead to us seeing more of Josh Malone (25) or Alex Erickson (15), but really it ended up being C.J. Uzomah (23) who saw the biggest bump in his snaps today. Meanwhile, Brandon LaFell (50) led receivers in targets and snaps for some reason.
• Dalton (41) was replaced again by AJ McCarron (14) after another miserable performance. Dalton completed 11 of 22 passes with two interceptions. McCarron led the team to its only touchdown of the game, but it was set up by Shawn William’s interception.
• George Iloka (15) went down with a shoulder injury early. This made Shawn William (52) returning from injury even more valuable. Still, Clayton Fejedelem (54) probably ended up playing more than you would like to see. It has been a struggle this season to have Williams and Iloka on the field at the same time this season.
• William Jackson (60) and Darqueze Dennard (62) played very well with Dre Kirkpatrick out due to injury again. Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen were held to a total of eight catches for 60 yards. Diggs’ touchdown came against Tony McRae (8), so you can’t even hold that play against them.
• The real trouble with the defense came from just how thin the Bengals are at linebacker. Vincent Rey (54) left due to a jaw injury. Jordan Evans (55) left with a forearm injury, but he was able to return. You top that off with Nick Vigil and Vontaze Burfict being out due to injury, and the team placing Kevin Minter on Injured Reserve. You have just created a recipe for disaster. Hardy Nickerson played 35 snaps. We shouldn’t wonder why the Vikings were running free on us.
• Geno Atkins (29) is still clearly not healthy as the team wasn’t playing him that often. Ryan Glasgow (33) and Andrew Billings (38) both out snapped him. Atkins was forced to play more when Billings went down with a leg injury. Atkins did record two sacks on the day, so it seems he just isn’t healthy enough to play his normal amount of snaps.
• Carl Lawson (19) didn’t have many opportunities to chase the Bengals’ rookie sack record. The Vikings were rarely in obvious passing situations.
• Cedric Ogbuehi (13) went down early, and Trey Hopkins (48) also missed some snaps due to injury. This opened the door for Eric Winston (42) and Alex Redmond (8) to see some playing time.