NFL Week 4 Bengals at Falcons Snap Count Takeaways: Sam Hubbard taking on a bigger role

The Bengals escaped Atlanta with a win by the skin of their teeth. It took some late game heroics by Andy Dalton and A.J. Green to get Cincinnati to (3-1), but it doesn’t matter how you get there, right? In any case we will be looking at a piece of how they got there by examining this week’s snap counts.

Snap count takeaways:

• Tyler Eifert’s injury left a huge hole as far as snap counts goes. After steadily getting more and more work, his game against the Falcons seemed like the first time they really let him loose. He had four catches for 38 and his first touchdown in only 19 snaps on Sunday. Of course he suffered an ankle injury that ended his season early in the third quarter, so who ended up leading the charge at tight end then? That would be C.J. Uzomah with 51 snaps. It may be time for fans to start recognizing his name as he has quietly had a solid season so far in a limited role. He only had one catch for six yards this week, but he has seven catches for 74 yards and a touchdown on the season so far.
• The Bengals actually out snapped the Falcons 73 to 70. Cincinnati also had the ball for a little over a minute longer than Atlanta. The Bengals defense still struggled to get off the field as the Falcons converted 11 of 15 third downs, but Cincinnati’s offense helped balance it out by having five more first downs than Atlanta. The Bengals defense also made a few big stops in the red zone that greatly impacted the result of the game.
• Nothing has really changed along the offensive line as Cordy Glenn, Clint Boling, Trey Hopkins, Alex Redmond and Bobby Hart each played all of their snaps. It will be interesting to see with rookie center Billy Price likely returning either this week or the next if the Bengals will decide to shuffle things up since Hopkins has played at about an average level at center. The right side of the offensive line could use a real shake up after a fairly rough outing. Unfortunately, it is something that if we haven’t seen it by now we have to wonder if we will see it at all.
• Tyler Boyd (62) was out snapped by Green (71), but it was Boyd who saw the most targets on Sunday with 15. He turned those targets into 11 catches for 100 yards, his first 100 yard receiving game of his career. With Eifert gone for the season, Boyd has become the lone safety blanket underneath for Dalton. It shouldn’t be surprising if this becomes the norm for Boyd.

• John Ross made his presence known on Sunday. He caught two passes for 52 yards and a touchdown. He did this in just 17 snaps as he pulled his groin on that touchdown grab. It was still great to see him making plays after a rough week where a portion of the fan base piled on him with criticism about his effort last week.
• Giovani Bernard (44) had two rushing touchdowns on the day with 96 total yards. We also saw plenty of the rookie running back Mark Walton (28). He made his presence known with 37 total yards on seven touches Sunday.
• Michael Johnson (29) was put back into the rotation at defensive end. This took a bite out of Carl Lawson’s (32) and Jordan Willis’ (29) snaps as they were all used pretty evenly. Carlos Dunlap led all defensive ends with 52 snaps, as Lawson and him both recorded sacks on the day. Lawson got his first sack of the season after one was called back by a ridiculous roughing the passer call earlier in the game.
• This was the Bengals first game without defensive tackle Ryan Glasgow as he was put on injured reserve following the Panthers’ game. Geno Atkins (50) played about the same amount of snaps as before. Andrew Billings also played 34 snaps, which is about normal for him. A defensive lineman who saw a huge jump in snaps though was rookie defensive lineman Sam Hubbard who played a whopping 40 snaps. The Bengals didn’t activate newly-acquired defensive tackle Adolphus Washington for this game, so this explains Hubbard’s increased exposure, especially at defensive tackle.