Bengals snap count distribution vs Lions: Cincinnati’s offense controlled the game

The Bengals showed up against the Lions on both sides of the ball on Sunday. They showed us that there is still plenty of talent on this team, and that going forward we should have hope.

Plenty of young players got playing time, and several guys were put in more important roles this week. Here is what we saw.

Snap count takeaways:

• For once the Bengals dominated the snap count battle. The Bengals ran 86 plays compared to the Lions 64 on the day. Cincinnati did only hold the ball for five minutes more in the time of possession though.
• Giovani Bernard (72) was called on to be an iron man for another week. Joe Mixon (7) started the game, but he quickly left with an ankle injury. The only other running back for the Bengals was Brian Hill (7) who actually finished the game with 51 yards on five total touches. Of course the hero of the game was Bernard who totaled 168 yard and a touchdown. It was nice for him to remind everyone that when he is healthy, he can do some big things for this team.
• The offensive line got a real shakeup this week. Cedric Ogbuehi and Andre Smith were both out, so the Bengals played Clint Boling (86) at left tackle and Eric Winston (86) at right tackle. This did also open up a great opportunity to see the young interior linemen in their first extended game action. Christian Westerman (42) and Alex Redmond (48) split the duty at guard with Boling kicking to the outside. Aside from a few young player mistakes, they held their own. It would be great to see them next week as well, especially since the Bengals are going into an offseason where we could be expecting a lot of change. Knowing what we have in two young young linemen would be great.
• William Jackson (62) finally overtook Darqueze Dennard (57) as the opposite corner to Dre Kirkpatrick (64). This isn’t to say Dennard hasn’t been good, but it has been fairly clear that Jackson has deserved to be starting for most of the season now, and if the Bengals retain Dennard this offseason then they will have quite the formidable secondary for a few years.
• The Bengals had to dig deep into their bench for linebackers. Vontaze Burfict (27) and Jordan Evans (17) left due to injuries early in the game. The Bengals were already without Nick Vigil and Kevin Minter, so they had to turn to Vincent Rey (52) and Hardy Nickerson (37) who both held their own playing for the two injured line backers.
• Geno Atkins (52) returned to playing a majority of the snaps, which means he has probably recovered fully from the injury that was limiting him. Also, we saw Carl Lawson (45) get way more action than he has in awhile. A lot of that was due to the Lions throwing so much, and the Bengals getting thinner at defensive tackle, so they kicked Michael Johnson (45) inside quite a bit.
• After being a healthy scratch last week, Tyler Boyd came back to play 49 snaps. He caught five passes for 39 yard. Meanwhile, Josh Malone (16) failed to catch his lone target on the day. Alex Erickson didn’t play a single offensive snap in case you were curious.