Bengals Week 13 snap count takeaways: Excuses running dry for not playing the young guys

With four straight losses in the rear-view mirror, the Bengals need to recognize their season has shifted. At 5-7, their hopes of even claiming a Wild Card spot are mathematically bleak. That doesn’t even take into account that Andy Dalton is on injured reserve and A.J. Green is likely to join him after appearing to re-injure his foot early against the Broncos.

There is no longer any excuse for the Bengals not to give their rookies and younger players a shot at playing over their veteran counterparts. This is valuable playing time that they can learn from, and perhaps they’ll realize they might actually be better than the player in front of them. Cincinnati has looked like one of the worst teams in the NFL even with those veterans out there, they are essentially out of the playoff hunt and it is hard to imagine them looking any worse than they have been for the past four weeks,

Here are the snap count takeaways:

• The Bengals actually out snapped the Broncos 68 to 59, but obviously it didn’t matter as the game never felt close. The Bengals constantly shot themselves in the foot with penalties, which didn’t help sustaining drives at all. 12 penalties for 100 yards isn’t how you’ll end up winning football games. The team also didn’t really let Jeff Driskel sling it downfield early. Meanwhile, the Broncos scored on a couple long plays, which helps skew the snaps.
• Malik Jefferson needs playing time. It is ridiculous at this point that the team’s most athletic linebacker doesn’t even have a role on their awful defense. Nick Vigil (57) returned from injury and played most of the game. However, Vontaze Burfict (38) exited the game early with a concussion, and the team ended up replacing him with Hardy Nickerson (21), who did forced fumble soon after he came onto the field. At this point the Bengals know what they have in Nickerson, Burfict and Jordan Evans (25). Why do they refuse to take a look at what Jefferson could even offer them? All this is going to lead to is Jefferson being thrusted into a bigger role either next year or the year after with little to no in-game experience, and the coaching staff blaming his struggles on growing pains. We can just get that out of the way now.
• Billy Price (68) is one of the few things the Bengals are doing that I can agree with. Many have pointed out his struggles against the Browns that led to some wild snaps, and penalties due to the ball being snapped too soon or late. Those same people think Price is probably destined to play guard, which may be true, but let’s at least see if he can grow into the center position the rest of this season. To be fair, I think the Bengals are doing this more out of stubbornness than actually thinking it through as they haven’t tried mixing things up on the offensive line all season unless there has been an injury.
• There is no reason Joe Mixon should only be playing 39 snaps (59 percent) in a game that was still in reach until the second half. Mixon only touched the ball 14 times and ended up with 95 total yards, as Cincinnati’s refusal to ride him more without Green on the field continues to be bad business. Don’t worry though, Driskel only threw the ball 38 times.
• Michael Johnson (36) doesn’t need to be playing more than Sam Hubbard (26) or Jordan Willis (21) the rest of the season. The two young players seem to be comparable in talent with a fraction of the experience, so letting them play to accumulate valuable experience would be the best for where they’re at now.